Minutes:
The Cathaoirleach, Councillor Mary Bohan welcomed Joe Lavin and Damian Fitzgibbons from National Broadband Ireland to the meeting.
A copy of the presentation delivered by the National Broadband Ireland to the members appears as Appendix 2 to the Minutes of this meeting in the Minute Book.
Cathaoirleach, Councillor Mary Bohan thanked Joe Lavin for his presentation and invited any questions/comments from the Members.
The following items and questions were raised:
• The Broadband mapping exercise was not accurate in Drumkeeran.
• Lack of broadband service in the Centre of Drumkeeran impacting on ability of Enterprise Centre to become a remote working hub. When work on broadband service was completed in Drumkeerin Village all premises and some homes on the outskirts were to have high speed broadband. The area north of the enterprise units have high speed broadband, but there are shops, post office, businesses, community centre and residents that are unable to access this high-speed service.
• Existing usage limit caps are very restrictive.
• Will it take 6 years to connect all houses in Leitrim?
• The NBI website shows areas as “Survey Planned” and “Survey Pending”; which is closer to happening?
• Allowing Eir to cherry pick densely populated areas was not good practice, if all areas had been included in tender there would be more bidders which would have been better for the general public.
• Keshcarrigan has an existing fibre exchange: will NBI have to run their infrastructure alongside the existing Eir infrastructure.
• When will fibre optic service the village of Kinlough and its primary school?
• Businesses in Manorhamilton have been quoted figures of €10,000 to get a fibre optic connection. This is not viable for small businesses.
• How long until fast broadband speed will be available to national schools in the Ballinamore area?
• Will people be able to tap into the fibre cable which was extended from Mohill to Cloone village and when can they look forward to a reliable useable service?
• People are frustrated with deadlines that are not being met. When is high speed broadband expected to be delivered in the Glenfarne area?
• Broadband service is still not working properly in St Michael’s NS in Glenfarne.
• No power to prevent private service providers charging what they like?
Joe Lavin responded to the above queries raised as follows:
• The Mapping Service was carried out in 2019 and all Service Providers were asked to submit plans of their networks. He advised the members that the public can easily determine if they are in the intervention area, via an Eircode search function on the NBI website. If members of the public are not in the Intervention area and still cannot get high speed broadband from broadband providers, the Department of Communications has a process to review.
• Members of the public should contact the Department of Communications at broadband@decc.gov.ie to pursue this. It would be helpful if members of the public could advise the Department of any operators, they may have contacted in relation to service issues at their property.
• National Broadband Ireland have not built in the Drumkeerin area yet and will liaise with Cllr Bohan in regard to broadband service for the Enterprise Units.
• Service providers are moving away from usage limit caps. 43 service providers have signed up with NBI and will provide a service over NBI infrastructure, this will make it easy for users to change service provider as required.
• NBI are building infrastructure to 544,000 premises. Alternative technology may be used for particularly remote houses or businesses.
• Over time the demand will be there for higher speeds and the NBI system can easily be upgraded to facilitate this.
• People in remote areas will get similar service to what is being delivered in towns today.
• NBI will be using their own fiber optic infrastructure which will be installed on existing EIR poles.
• NBI have no power to prevent service providers charging what they like.
• NBI will sell a nondiscriminatory service to all 43 service providers that have signed up with them.
• NBI are in the 2nd year of a 7-year build. This is a significant project, 31 local authorities to deal with. This is the 3rd time the Government has looked at providing broadband services.
• NBI promise to deliver a network that is fit for future generations.
• Email for political reps: reps@nbi.ie
• €10,000 is excessive for businesses to get connected to fibre optic. A list of enterprise and business products with speeds up to 10 Gb is available and is priced a lot cheaper than that to install.
• If an Eircode search on the NBI website returns “Survey Pending”, no date has been set for the survey.
• NBI will provide a service to any premises that their infrastructure passes.
• NBI had to stand down their surveying contractors with the onset of COVID-19. The surveying programme is now back on track. The Design phase is now catching up following the shutdown of the surveying programme. The build phase of project is behind schedule, but it is likely that there will be an acceleration in this phase in 2022.
Cathaoirleach, Councillor Mary Bohan thanked Joe Lavin and Damian Fitzgibbons from National Broadband Ireland for attending the meeting.
It was agreed by the Members to take a 20 minute break at this point and resume the meeting at 1.20 p.m.