Forfás launches broadband benchmarking report

Forfás launches broadband benchmarking report

Date: 22 January 2010

Ireland has made significant progress in improving levels of broadband coverage and take-up in the last two years, however we are still behind competitor countries in terms of rolling out high speed next generation networks (NGN), according to a new broadband benchmarking report published by Forfás today.

Broadband connections now account for 90 percent of internet connections, compared to 58 percent in Q1 2007, which represents a significant transition from dial-up. Ireland has 21.4 broadband subscribers per 100 inhabitants compared to the OECD average of 22.4 (excluding mobile broadband and leading countries such as the Netherlands (38.1) and Denmark (37).


The download speeds available in Ireland are greatly improved on recent years, but remain below the fastest speeds available to customers in other OECD countries. In Ireland 0.6 percent of total broadband connections are fibre connections. This compares to 11.3 percent of subscribers on average in OECD-28 countries.


Commenting, Jane Williams, Chief Executive, Forfás, said "Advanced broadband services are essential to underpinning entrepreneurship and innovation and are needed to position Ireland for export led recovery.  Greater investment in telecommunications infrastructure is required if Ireland is to converge towards leading countries in terms of high quality broadband availability. Ireland needs to be among the leaders in Europe in the provision of next generation telecommunications infrastructure, access and services by 2012. Many telecommunications companies and states around the world are investing significantly in next generation networks that can cater for the bandwidth needs of industries in the future.  Driving next generation connectivity is a key enterprise policy priority for Ireland.  We must ensure that a competitiveness threat does not open up for Irish firms as significantly faster speeds are becoming widespread in other countries."


Ireland's key weakness is the lack of deployment of fibre infrastructure closer to the consumer for both wired and wireless networks. The report makes a number of key policy recommendations to address this including:

  • Actions to facilitate the necessary investment by private telecommunications operators.
    Arising from changes in EU policy, the Department of Communications and ComReg should review options to increase revenues and reduce costs and risks for private sector operators while continuing to support competition in the market. This includes ensuring an appropriate return on investment for private telecoms operators to incentivise investment in next generation networks; examining the potential for infrastructure sharing between telecommunication operators; reducing the costs of building access networks, and enabling wireless spectrum to play a strong role in the delivery of higher-speed broadband.
  • Actions to utilise existing state investment and regulation to support development.
    This includes:
    • Facilitating access to public ducting and other infrastructure that could be used for fibre deployment. The Department of Communications has committed to a "one-stop shop" for State broadband infrastructure to provide broadband operators with integrated access to State-owned infrastructure. Forfás is highly supportive of the completion of this initiative which should be progressed swiftly; 
    • Extending existing Metropolitan Area Networks to key IDA industrial sites in Cork and Waterford to meet existing enterprise needs; and
    • Building additional MANs in five outstanding National Spatial Strategy centres can support the availability of advanced broadband services.

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