£150m Extra for Ultrafast Broadband in Northern Ireland – Tory and DUP

The United Kingdom’s Conservative Party has today signed a new deal with the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) to secure the support of their 10 MPs in Parliament. As part of that Northern Ireland can expect to receive £75m per year over two years to “help provide ultra-fast broadband“.

A Summary of the Deal can be found online and at present this provides no information about how the extra investment will be distributed, although that’s no doubt more of a question for the DUP itself. In its 2017 June Manifesto the DUP merely pledged to “develop a comprehensive Broadband Infrastructure Plan to roll out high speed internet connectivity across Northern Ireland,” which doesn’t tell us much.

At present around 98% of N.Ireland can already access a “fibre broadband” (FTTC , FTTP or Cable DOCSIS) based network, although only about 82% of homes and businesses can expect to receive “superfast broadband” (24Mbps+) speeds (here). In terms of ultrafast (100Mbps+) coverage, over a quarter of premises can be reached via Virgin Media’s cable network and there’s also a tiny bit of FTTP.

Suffice to say that N.Ireland might do better to focus on filling the sizeable gaps in their “superfast” coverage before they move on to tackle “ultrafast“, although they could also do both at the same time. We shall await more details and report back (it might take awhile before a solid plan emerges).

UPDATE 1:27pm

The head of Belfast based telecommunications firm, B4B Group, which is currently completing a roll-out of FTTP broadband infrastructure in 9 business parks around Northern Ireland, has welcomed today’s news.

Dominic Kearns, Managing Director of B4B Group, said:

“Broadband is essential in attracting inward investment, supporting indigenous businesses and improving the lives of people who live here. These additional funds need to be invested immediately in the areas that require it the most. I welcome the focus on Ultrafast infrastructure as anything less is only a temporary solution that will require further upgrade down the line.”

It is important that the Government engage with the communications sector here as well as the local business community to ensure the committed funds are used as effectively as possible. Companies like ours are already delivering innovative broadband solutions in areas which were previously designated as hard to reach alongside our current roll-out of Ultrafast infrastructure in business parks throughout Northern Ireland.”