National Broadband Ireland Network now available across all 26 counties

National Broadband Ireland (NBI), the company rolling out the new high-speed fibre broadband network under the Government’s National Broadband Plan (NBP), has announced there are now connections to its high-speed fibre network in each of the 26 counties, with the first premises in County Longford having now connected.

Over 100,000 homes, farms and businesses are ready to connect to the NBI network, with over 30,000 premises connected or signed up to connect.

A total of 27,148 premises – including homes, farms, businesses and community facilities –now have guaranteed access to minimum broadband speeds of 500Mb through connection to NBI fibre.

Peter Hendrick, Chief Executive Officer, of National Broadband Ireland said: “The NBI rollout is showing real momentum and the availability of connections now in each of the 26 counties is a landmark moment. We have achieved our target of having construction underway in over 40% of the National Broadband Plan intervention area and we are now seeing a ramping up of premises moving from the construction phase to the order phase.

“Over 100,000 homes, farms and businesses are now ready to connect to NBI fibre by ordering from one of our broadband provider partners. Over 30,000 premises have already done so and we expect to see more and more people take up the opportunity to increase their internet speed to 500 megabits per second, allowing households to work, study and access entertainment on multiple devices at the same time. We are encouraging people to visit the NBI website to check their Eircode and see if they are ready to connect.”

Under the National Broadband Plan, 559,000 premises nationwide are included in the Intervention Area, which was established by the Department of Environment, Climate and Communications to identify areas where commercial operators are not currently providing or intending to provide access to high-speed broadband.

National Broadband Ireland will ultimately connect 1.1 million people in every county, 65,000 farms, 44,000 small businesses and 679 schools.

Progress to date*:

—  245,533 premises under construction (44% of the intervention area)

—  117,179 premises available to order or pre-order

—  102,888 premises ready to connect

—  31,645 connections ordered, with 27,148 connected

—  59 retail broadband provider partners

*data correct as of 16/12/2022