National Broadband Plan Faces New Challenges

With the news that the energy infrastructure consortium SSE has dropped out of the bid for Ireland’s National Broadband Plan, the fate of the scheme seems to be very much up in the air.

The sole remaining contender is Enet, a company described by an Irish Times industry source as an “expert network operator but not an expert network developer […] they just don’t have the breadth and depth of scale and project managing that is required”.

Following the earlier withdrawals of Eir and SIRO – ESB and Vodafone’s initiative to bring high-speed internet to fifty regional towns – from the bid, many now believe the plan will fail to reach its goal of a connected Ireland by 2020.

To make matters worse, it is now estimated that the taxpayer will be footed with the €1 billion bill for the National Broadband Plan. The Plan’s original cost of €1 billion was to be shared between the State and the successful contractor. But with one contender left to set their own terms, as well as the costliness of connecting rural homes to fibre-optic broadband, it could now be entirely at our expense.

Around 542,000 homes and premises are believed to be without broadband around the country. As the rest of the world becomes ever more connected, rural communities in Ireland are made to feel increasingly isolated.

At Abodoo, we feel it is our mission to educate employers and employees about the importance of getting connected to make life easier for everyone. With the recent announcement of our partnership with Vodafone, we aim to bring talented workers from rural areas into the spotlight and unburden them from the constrictions of geography.

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