First premises connected in rural Kilkenny deployment area under National Broadband Plan

National Broadband Ireland (NBI) has announced that the first premises in the Johnstown Deployment Area have been successfully connected.

The company is delivering the new future-proofed, high-speed fibre-to-the-home network under the National Broadband Plan (NBP) on behalf of the Government.

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Up to 19,000 premises in County Kilkenny are included in the State’s Intervention Area, which will see NBI deliver minimum speeds of 500 megabits per second to homes, businesses, farms and schools.

As the biggest investment in rural Ireland since rural electrification, the county will receive €72 million of Government investment under the NBP. 

Half of all premises in the Kilkenny intervention area are now able to connect to high-speed fibre on the National Broadband Ireland network and over 90 per cent of the rollout in the county is expected to be completed by the end of 2024.

Peter Hendrick, Chief Executive Officer of National Broadband Ireland is calling on residents in the Kilkenny deployment area to visit nbi.ie to check their Eircode to see if they can get connected and register for updates. 

"It is our goal to give homes and businesses throughout Ireland the opportunity to experience the life-changing benefits that high-speed broadband provides," he said.

"We understand the role that high-speed broadband now plays in everyday lives and want to give the people of Ireland every opportunity to avail of it."

Pat Wall, one of the first customers in the Johnstown Deployment Area to be connected to the NBI network said that the fibre broadband had been a great boost to the whole family for both work and play.

"Since the outset of the Covid pandemic I have worked almost exclusively from home and this involves a lot of remote interactions in terms of meetings, presentations and transferring datasets every day," he said.

"The additional bandwidth and stability that the fibre connection provides means that the experience is now like working in the office and I can be much more efficient with my time.

"For the home, fibre also means we can now watch movies and tv on demand and my son loves the 10ms ping time and low latency for gaming and the speed at which updates for his PlayStation games are downloaded. We also don't have to worry about exceeding a daily data limit which is an added bonus!

"Selecting Aptus as our Fibre provider was a no-brainer for me. They have provided us with an excellent wireless service for the past 3 years and I cannot speak highly enough of their staff who are always very friendly and knowledgeable with their support.

As a wholesale network operator, NBI does not sell fibre broadband directly to end users, rather it enables services from a range of broadband providers or Retail Service Providers (RSPs).

As a wholesale provider, NBI will make the new fibre-to-the-home network available to all RSPs operating in the Intervention Area.  

Some 61 RSPs have already signed up to sell services on the NBI network and 48 are certified as ready to start providing connections as of today.

NBI contractors have been on the ground since January 2020 surveying townlands across the county.

This involves physically walking the routes and documenting images, notes and measurements of the poles, cables and underground ducts in each area, and enables design solutions for the provision of the fibre network.  

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 access to high-speed broadband or do not intend to.   

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Broadband Connection Points (BCPs) 

In advance of the fibre-to-the-home rollout, the NBP provides for the delivery of Broadband Connection Points (BCPs) nationwide. 574 of these sites, including Public BCPs, are now ‘live’.

Public BCPs – which include sports clubs, community centres and tourist sites – will provide free public access to high-speed internet in the rollout area. Other BCP categories include schools and marts.

An example of some of the locations of Broadband Connection Points in Kilkenny include the Crosspatrick Community Hall, Ballyouskill Parish Hall, and Muckalee Handball Club. 

Primary schools in the Intervention Area are also being connected for educational access as part of the NBP. 

NBI is encouraging people to check their eligibility and register for updates at www.nbi.ie to receive regular notifications related to their own premises as works progresses in their area.