National Broadband Ireland (NBI), the company tasked with delivering Ireland’s National Broadband Plan (NBP), has announced that ‘up to’ 55,000 premises across 22 counties are now able to order or pre-order a connection via its infrastructure with their preferred retail service provider (RSP). In a press release regarding the network development, the company said that its infrastructure is now available in counties including: Carlow, Clare, Cavan, Cork, Galway, Kerry, Kildare, Kilkenny, Laois, Limerick, Louth, Monaghan, Roscommon, Sligo, Tipperary, Waterford, Wexford, and Wicklow. Meanwhile, NBI noted that as the NBP progresses additional towns including Ballina, Blessington, Castlebar, Gort, Killarney, Mullingar and Clonmel are expected to be able to place orders for a connection ‘by the end of February’.
With NBI further saying that it is ‘actively working’ in all counties to survey, design and build the new high speed, fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) network which will connect over 1.1 million people and over 554,000 premises in the project’s ‘Intervention Area’. Commenting, NBI’s chief executive Peter Hendrick said: ‘We will continue to build upon the progress we have made to-date as an increasing number of homes and businesses are connected. With surveys completed for approximately 55% of the entire Intervention Area, over 252,000 designs completed, and over 150,000 premises already constructed or currently under construction, we are seeing the rollout gathering significant pace.