Home
 » ISP News » 
Sponsored Links

10 Northern Ireland Councils to See New £15m Full Fibre Network

Thursday, May 9th, 2019 (11:16 am) - Score 2,847

Further details have today been revealed about a new UK Government funded project that will see ten councils (outside of Belfast) in Northern Ireland coming together in order to benefit from a new Gigabit speed “full fibre” (FTTP / Dark Fibre) network, which aims to connect around 880 public sector sites by March 2021.

The deployment is being supported by a public investment of £15 million, which was recently awarded under Wave 3 of the UK Government’s Local Full Fibre Networks (LFFN) programme (here). As part of that ten councils have formed the Full Fibre Northern Ireland Consortium (FFNI) to oversee the project and this is being led by the Newry, Mourne and Down District Council.

The project appears to follow the usual Public-Sector Anchor Tenancy model, which will first focus upon connecting public sector sites to the new fibre optic lines before later opening this network up for use by ISPs to offer 1Gbps broadband services to local businesses and possibly even homes.

At the time of writing we do not yet have a full list of all the councils that will benefit from the new network, although we note that both the Antrim and Newtownabbey Borough Council and the Derry City and Strabane District Council have put out supporting announcements.

Margot James, UK Minister for Digital, said:

“We’re building a Britain that’s fit for the future, and our plans for a national full fibre broadband network underpin our modern Industrial Strategy. This £15 million boost for gigabit speeds in Northern Ireland will benefit homes and businesses across the country and I congratulate the Full Fibre Northern Ireland Consortium in its successful bid.”

Mark Murnin, Newry, Mourne & Down District Council Chairman, said:

“I am delighted that the FFNI Consortium has secured additional funding from DCMS to support the enhancement of digital infrastructure across Northern Ireland.

Investing in connectivity is essential for economic growth and prosperity and will help to further establish both Newry, Mourne and Down and all of Northern Ireland as a digital destination for investment, jobs and business infrastructure. This is an excellent example of local councils working together for the benefit of the whole region.”

The announcements all state that “currently only 12% of premises in Northern Ireland have access to full fibre connectivity,” although that is based off Ofcom’s figure from September 2018 and the ferocious pace of change means that this has already risen to 16% in January 2019; the highest level of full fibre coverage in the United Kingdom.

UPDATE 1:13pm

The full list of 10 councils is as follows.

Antrim and Newtownabbey

Fermanagh and Omagh

Ards and North Down

Lisburn and Castlereagh

Armagh City, Banbridge and Craigavon

Mid and East Antrim

Causeway Coast and Glens

Mid Ulster

Newry, Mourne and Down

Derry City and Strabane

Mark-Jackson
By Mark Jackson
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook and .
Search ISP News
Search ISP Listings
Search ISP Reviews
Comments
7 Responses
  1. Avatar photo Stew says:

    So FTTP should be available to a lot more homes soon in Northern Ireland?

    1. Mark-Jackson Mark Jackson says:

      Yes and no. The above contract is all about connecting public buildings, but the idea of this approach is that by bringing optical fibre into such areas you can then later make use of it to help other ISPs connect businesses and homes. Cityfibre has used a similar model in a large number of UK cities and this now helps to support their £2.5bn roll-out to homes. It’s a foundation for something.

      However, in terms of your very generalised question, FTTP is already spreading across N.Ireland thanks to deployments by Openreach and others. But NI does suffer somewhat as there are fewer alternative network providers in that neck of the woods and Brexit issues may be holding up some related plans.

  2. Avatar photo John mcelhatton says:

    Northern Ireland left behind again complete joke

    1. Avatar photo CarlT says:

      Northern Ireland has the highest level of FTTP coverage of any of the four countries in the Union…

    2. Avatar photo BA1 says:

      The Government is due to invest at least £150M along with private sector funding in NI in superfast broadband which will likely primarily use full fibre. Belfast is also one of the first cities in the UK to have a 5G trial. So NI is certainly NOT being left behind.

  3. Avatar photo Ivor Mac says:

    Yes Belfast is certainly NOT being left behind, but rural Norhern Ireland IS.
    I get 1.8 Mbps on a good day.

    1. Avatar photo BA1 says:

      That is due to the fact that typically premises in rural areas of NI are more spread out than in England, for example, where housing is in clusters thus making it easier to reach more premises. Without public funding, private telecomms companies will not invest in areas where they don’t make a profit. Your speed is determined by the distance between exchange (if cabinet not upgraded) or cabinet (FTTC) and your premises. Previously all fixed line broadband was delivered along the legacy infrastructure of copper lines, but these are gradually being replaced by fibre, thus increasing speed. But upgrades cost a significant amount of money, particularly in rural locations.

Comments are closed

Cheap BIG ISPs for 100Mbps+
Community Fibre UK ISP Logo
150Mbps
Gift: None
Virgin Media UK ISP Logo
Virgin Media £24.00
132Mbps
Gift: None
Shell Energy UK ISP Logo
Shell Energy £26.99
109Mbps
Gift: None
Plusnet UK ISP Logo
Plusnet £27.99
145Mbps
Gift: None
Zen Internet UK ISP Logo
Zen Internet £28.00 - 35.00
100Mbps
Gift: None
Large Availability | View All
Cheapest ISPs for 100Mbps+
Gigaclear UK ISP Logo
Gigaclear £15.00
150Mbps
Gift: None
YouFibre UK ISP Logo
YouFibre £19.99
150Mbps
Gift: None
Community Fibre UK ISP Logo
150Mbps
Gift: None
BeFibre UK ISP Logo
BeFibre £21.00
150Mbps
Gift: £25 Love2Shop Card
Hey! Broadband UK ISP Logo
150Mbps
Gift: None
Large Availability | View All
The Top 15 Category Tags
  1. FTTP (5473)
  2. BT (3505)
  3. Politics (2525)
  4. Openreach (2291)
  5. Business (2251)
  6. Building Digital UK (2234)
  7. FTTC (2041)
  8. Mobile Broadband (1961)
  9. Statistics (1780)
  10. 4G (1654)
  11. Virgin Media (1608)
  12. Ofcom Regulation (1451)
  13. Fibre Optic (1392)
  14. Wireless Internet (1386)
  15. FTTH (1381)

Helpful ISP Guides and Tips

Promotion
Sponsored

Copyright © 1999 to Present - ISPreview.co.uk - All Rights Reserved - Terms , Privacy and Cookie Policy , Links , Website Rules , Contact
Mastodon