The saga of the National Broadband Plan explained

If the story of the National Broadband Plan is ever transformed into a book, it will probably take several volumes to tell. This is because the saga has had more ups and downs than an unreliable Internet connection in rural western Kerry.

What is the national plan for broadband

The national plan for broadband services is in preparation since 2012 and was described at the time as announced as "21st century rural electrification". Its goal is to provide broadband broadband to all homes and businesses in the country where such a service is not available, as commercial operators claim that it is not commercially viable. # 39; offer. A total of 542,000 local people or 1.1 million people still need to be connected. The current plan is to have a commercial operator deploy the network, with the state providing a subsidy to cover the incremental costs beyond what is commercially viable. A large Ministry of Communications project team worked on an incredibly complex and complex procurement process to force an operator to route fiber optic cable in almost all of these 542,000 homes and businesses. Competition for the contract was reduced to three bidders in 2016 – SIRO (a joint venture between ESB and Vodafone), Eir and a consortium of the US investment company in the technology and telecommunications sectors, Granahan McCourt , with Enet and others. But SIRO gave up, followed by Eir, who simply left the consortium Granahan McCourt and Enet. Despite the fact that there remains only one bidder, the government launched the procurement process and hoped to be able to sign a contract if the Granahan consortium's latest tender call McCourt, now called National Broadband Ireland, had pbaded. acceptable.

So what is the controversy?

Last month, it became apparent that the then Minister of Communications, Denis Naughten, had met with David McCourt, founder and president of Granahan McCourt, on several occasions over the last two years, the final stages of the process. procurement is still ongoing. This sparked further questions from the opposition as well as pressure and Denis Naughten finally resigned after the Taoiseach asked him to think about his position when Mr. Naughten told him he had four other private dinners with Mr. McCourt, including one at Mr. McCourt's home in Co Clare. Mr. Naughten has always said that he has done nothing wrong. At the same time, Taoiseach commissioned Peter Smyth, the independent auditor of the National Broadband Plan process, to review contacts between Mr. Naughten and Mr. McCourt. This should allow the government to badess whether the integrity of the procurement process had been compromised by meetings between Messrs. McCourt and Naughten.

And that's what is now over?

Yes, Mr. Smyth's report has now been published. She found that neither former Naughten nor David McCourt influenced the bidding process for the plan. It is said that the fact that the former minister met with Mr. McCourt or representatives of other bidders outside the process does not in itself constitute a basis for concluding that the contracting process was tainted. Mr. Smyth was satisfied that neither the former minister nor Mr. McCourt had had the opportunity to influence the progress of the appeal process. offers in favor of Granahan McCourt or otherwise. He also stated that Mr. Naughten's decision to resign isolated the process from any apparent bias created by his relationship with Mr. McCourt. Mr. Smyth, however, stated that the absence of official minutes or meeting notes for a number of meetings meant that he was based on the statements of Mr. Naughten and Mr. McCourt and Other people for checking the content of the meetings. As a result, he stated that he could not state unequivocally that the intervention conducted by the state under the NBP had not been discussed at meetings between the government and the government. former Minister and Mr. McCourt outside the contracting process.

So what happens next?

Well, the new Communications Minister, Richard Bruton, said that after reviewing the report, the government had approved the ongoing evaluation by his department of the offer submitted by National Broadband Ireland. The offer includes about 20,000 pages of documents, including technical and financial solutions. It is unclear when this process will be completed, but bid evaluation continues in parallel with the Smyth Review and the government will be eager to make a decision soon. Once the evaluation is complete, the procurement team will report its findings to the Minister who will make a recommendation to the Cabinet to accept or reject the offer.

And if it is rejected, is there a plan B?

It certainly seems that the government would prefer to try to make the current process work. Deleting it and returning to the drawing board at this point would certainly delay the project even further. With a potential election still in the background, he knows he must have something definitive to sell when he sends his troops to the door. There was a lot of talk and a lot of calls for work on a B plan. The opposition was concerned that the current process is flawed and that the only remaining bidder may not be able to deliver this. which is required. He suggested that one of the semi-state organizations such as BSE or Ervia could be mandated to take over the provision of broadband in rural Ireland. However, within the industry, there is a significant degree of skepticism about whether this would be realistic.

How can a B plan be different?

Another suggestion that has been proven over the past few weeks is this: instead of trying to bring fiber optic cable to every local in the country, the government should instead reconsider the use of mobile or wireless technology. Indeed, its deployment could be cheaper and faster, especially if the country were to be divided into several pockets, with different technological solutions for different areas. However, opinions differ as to the suitability of mobile technology in the future. The other problem that has recently surfaced is the fear that everyone in rural Ireland will not want the same level of service offered by fiber optic cable installed in all areas. Indeed, it has been argued that, where such cables have already been installed, the use of the service seems to be weak so far. However, industry sources say this is not really the case and the demand is close to what they expected.

And what is all this going to cost us?

All these developments were accompanied by information that the likely cost of the national broadband plan, as it is currently envisaged, has reached 3 billion euros. Here again, the telecommunications sector has differing views on this bill, but most seem to think that the figure of 3 billion euros is rather high. Today, the finance minister said funding for the National Development Plan could be used to provide broadband to rural areas of Ireland. How much is the question? A question that will be answered only in the coming weeks when we know if the offer of the National Broadband Ireland consortium has been accepted.