Construction of high-speed broadband network commences across Fermoy deployment area

At Toby Allen’s home in Midleton, were Dan O'Sullivan, Cork County Council; John Barry, Airwave; Toby Allen, Ballymaloe Cookery School; Valerie O’Sullivan, Cork County Council and Michael Spreadborough, Airwave. (Photo: Cathal Noonan)

National Broadband Ireland (NBI) this week announced that construction has commenced to deliver high-speed broadband to almost 9,600 homes, farms and businesses in County Cork, including to over 3,800 premises in the Fermoy deployment area.

These build works include the rural communities of Rathcormac and Watergrasshill, as well as elsewhere in the county at Courtmacsherry and Rathclaren near Clonakilty. Construction has also commenced at almost 5,800 premises in the Clonakilty deployment area.

In addition, engineering survey works are now underway on Bere Island, as it progresses towards towards high-speed fibre broadband access for almost 250 premises. 

TJ Malone, Chief Executive Officer, National Broadband Ireland Deployment, said that teams are working on the ground all over the country and considerable progress has been made on developments in Cork

“High-speed fibre broadband is now available to order for over 6,500 premises near Templemartin, 2,300 premises around Youghal, over 4,700 in Carrigaline, over 9,500 in Midleton, almost 900 in the Tallow deployment area and over 2,100 in Rathmore. Construction works are already underway for almost 3,900 premises in the Kanturk deployment area, and we are delighted that premises in Clonakilty and Fermoy are now also moving into this phase,” Mr Malone said.

Having successfully completed the survey and design phases of the project, 5,795 premises around Clonakilty and 3,823 premises in the Fermoy deployment area are now under construction. In Cork, there are approximately 82,000 premises in the Intervention Area (IA), which includes homes, farms, commercial businesses and schools.

FIBRE-TO-THE-HOME

Under the National Broadband Plan, County Cork will see an investment of €314M in the new high-speed fibre network. This will enable e-learning, remote monitoring of livestock or equipment, e-health initiatives, better energy efficiency in the home and will facilitate increased levels of remote working.

“Our overarching goal is to improve digital connectivity across the country. With minimum internet speed of 500Mbps, this new Fibre-to-the-Home network will play a pivotal role in sustaining local businesses and communities,” Mr Malone concluded.

Works have already been completed in other parts of Cork and there are 25,636 premises that are available to order or pre-order high-speed, reliable broadband across the county, with 8,593 already connected to the network. 

National Broadband Ireland is calling on people to visit nbi.ie/map/ and enter their Eircode to see if they are ready to connect.