5 April 2017
By Bryan T. Smyth
bryan@TheCork.ie
Fine Gael Senator for Cork and Government spokesperson in the Seanad on Communications, Tim Lombard, said over 25,000 premises in Cork will have high speed broadband by 2018.
Senator Tim Lombard (Fine Gael) is based outside Carrigaline, Co Cork
Senator Lombard said: “Some 25,373 premises in Cork will have high speed broadband by next year, and at 30 mbps these Cork premises will benefit from broadband speed higher than New York and on par with South Korea.
“Today is a good day for rural Ireland. A new agreement the government signed with Eir means one house every minute of every working day will get fibre to the door high speed broadband over the next 90 weeks.
“Some 300,000 more rural premises will have access to high speed quality broadband – that’s an extra 500 houses every day.
“Over the last four years commercial operators have invested over €2.5bn upgrading telecoms networks and services.
“This is a clear indication that the state’s commitment to Broadband is driving investment from the commercial sector.
“With the finalisation of the Broadband map one of the key uncertainties in the procurement process has now been removed and will allow us to move closer to our goal of ensuring all premises in Ireland will have access to high speed broadband.”
“In 2016 only 52% of premises in Ireland had access to High Speed Broadband (HSB). With this latest development 77% of premises will have access to HSB by the end of 2018 and the majority of the remaining premises will have access by the end of 2020.”
