Universal Gigabit by 2028 is not believable
‘The policy is the policy until the policy changes’
The Government’s Digital Connectivity Strategy dates from 2022 and contains three targets.
- All Irish households and businesses will be covered by a Gigabit network no later than 2028
- All populated areas covered by 5G by no later than 2030
- Complete the delivery of digital connectivity to all Broadband Connection Points and all schools by 2023.
We can dispense with target number three, the BCPs and schools, which was met some time ago, and number two, the 5g target, is worth a post of its own. The question here is whether the Government credibly can cling to the claim of ubiquitous gigabit coverage by 2028.
The strategy was supposed to “evolve“. In 2023 the Department committed to an update no later than 2025. That didn’t happen, but last December we were advised the strategy would be updated ‘early’ in 2026; that was later revised to sometime ‘this year’. As of last week they’re working on it.
As for the substance of the strategy; the NBP is broadly on schedule in rural areas. However, the government has made itself reliant on the goodwill of the market to deliver the urban areas on time. Eircom, being the former state monopolist, the current SMP, and having national infrastructure, would be expected to do the bulk of the work.
But the department will have noticed that Eircom’s roll-out is slowing down. Progress towards Eircom’s own 1.9M target is now at half the pace it was in 2023. At that rate it will not conclude before April 2029. And that will still leave ‘the untouchables’, the premises that no network will entertain on a commercial basis.
Two years ago former Minister Eamon Ryan identified that something might need to be done.
My Department is aware through engagement with various stakeholders, including commercial operators and ComReg, of the possibility that it may not be viable for commercial operators to reach all premises in urban areas to deliver on EU and National Targets. These are areas currently not within the scope of the National Broadband Plan.
An extensive mapping exercise will be required taking account of commercial deployments which are currently being rolled out, to identify the scale of this potential problem including identifying individual Eircode’s impacted. My Department are currently engaged with ComReg on this exercise.
If it emerges that the market cannot deliver on EU and National Connectivity Targets, the Department will consider appropriate public policy tools required to ensure those targets are achieved.
Later, in October 2024, the then Minister of State Ossian Smyth added “We are probably talking about approximately 150,000 homes”
Since then the policy tools open to the Government have been either ignored or slow-walked to irrelevance. Universal Service, the Copper Switch-Off, or a new intervention will now take too long getting started to assist in meeting the target date.
All the while, Dáil deputies asking questions have been fed boilerplate lines such as that the Minister has “no statutory authority to intervene” – though creating statutory authority is his job; or that “pilot studies” are underway; or that they’re working with local authorities; or that it’s a next generation problem and “Dublin specific” – which it isn’t.
Minister of State Charlie McConalogue recently reiterated the Department’s stance to the 2028 target by telling the Dáil “the strategy is in the process of being refreshed and will maintain this ambition”. He’ll need a miracle.