Fine Gael Kildare South Martin Heydon TD has today (Wednesday) said that he is continuing to keep the pressure on Eir to confirm timelines for the rollout of their fibre broadband technology to many rural areas of South Kildare. He was speaking following a meeting with senior executives from Eir in Leinster House last week.
“Eir have been expanding their fibre broadband rural network in recent years and have announced a number of areas around the Country which are included in their plans up to 2020. Their new FTTH (Fibre To the Home) technology is designed for rural areas where bringing copper wires from cabinets proves more difficult.
“They have previously announced plans to rollout this new FTTH technology to 300,000 homes around the Country. However frustratingly, timelines for many specific areas have been vague to date. In June 2015 specific timelines for the first 100,000 premises were confirmed and are now in progress. This first phase includes areas in South Kildare such as Brannockstown and Robertstown with homes in the Robertstown area due to be completed in the coming months.
“I emphasised the enormity of the problem in many areas of South Kildare to them and stressed the need for early rollout of fibre broadband in many of these areas, which have previously been mentioned but with no specific timelines given. Areas such as Calverstown, Narraghmore, Kilmeade, Mageney Blacktrench and Cherryville are all potentially to be included in Eir’s fibre roll out plans to 2020 but have not been given specific timelines as yet.
“They hope to be in a position to announce details of the next phase of their fibre roll out in the coming months and I will continue to push to try to ensure that areas of Kildare South which are crying out for improved services are included.”
Details of Eir’s fibre broadband rollout plans for individual areas can be seen in more detail at www.fibrerollout.ie.