gov says something

The strategy will address all parts of Ireland that cannot access commercial high speed broadband services. To this end, it will include supporting measures to accelerate end user connections to the fibre network and proposals to address the most remote areas of the country. The Minister said “I want to ensure that local communities are empowered to accelerate the delivery of high speed broadband to their areas. I have asked my officials to explore options for an appropriate demand led mechanism for inclusion in the published implementation strategy”. Consultation with the Local Authorities, voluntary and co-operative sectors will take place in order to explore how such a mechanism could be mobilised and supported.

In tandem with the fibre build-out, the Strategy will include measures to respond to aggregated community demand for services, and the provision of access services in the most remote areas where fibre rollout may be insufficient to stimulate commercial investment or may be cost-prohibitive. Considerable progress has been made on the various work streams informing the direction and detail of the strategy, particularly in the area of mapping, financial and infrastructure modelling and technical specifications. These work streams are continuing and will be completed over the coming months. A detailed implementation strategy containing details of all of the proposed elements along with the outcome of the mapping exercise will be published for public consultation later this year.