LAST UPDATE | 11 Aug 2021

EIR HAS SAID that a further 200,000 homes and businesses are set to have access to its Gigabit Fibre Network.

The company says the move means that 1.9m or 84% of premises in the country will have access to gigabit fibre broadband.

Eir has said that the new premises set to be upgraded are dispersed across every county in Ireland and amount to “more than 800 locations”.

In a statement to The Journal, Eir says the locations are: “mostly in smaller communities than originally announced, which was every town and village with more than 1,000 premises.”

The company also said that the total build programme for the fibre network was five years. 

Areas not covered by commercial broadband operators will be the target areas for the State intervention under the National Broadband Plan.

Under government plans to provide high-speed broadband to every premises in the country, it is to be delivered through a combination of commercial provision and State investment.

Premises include homes, schools, businesses and farms and the plan envisages that about 1.8 million premises will be reached by commercial operators while just over  540,000 will require state intervention.  

Eir said today that the decision to expand the area covered by its gigabit fibre networks is partly motivated by growing demand due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

“We continuously monitor the connection rates of our fibre network and we have seen connections to our rural network more than double in the last 18 months, signifying the increased requirements for high-speed connectivity of homes and businesses in Ireland,” Eir managing director Eavann Murphy said today.

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She added: “The pandemic has transformed our needs and what was sufficient for the average family home before is no longer adequate.”

The previous government in late 2019 signed off the €3 billion National Broadband Plan contract to the sole remaining bidder for the contract Granahan McCourt. 

The year previous Eir had pulled out of the bidding process for the contract.