The Cabinet has agreed a deal with Eir that will see 300,000 premises in rural areas around the country removed from the National Broadband Plan.
Instead, Eir will connect the homes and businesses to high speed broadband between now and the end of next year.
The Government has also announced that 84,500 premises have been added to the intervention area because planned commercial investment to connect these buildings has not materialised.
The Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment says the agreement with Eir means the map of the areas that the National Broadband Plan needs to reach can now be finalised.
More than 90% of the connections by Eir will be over fibre to the home (FTTH), technology which can typically support speeds of up to 1Gbps.
The remaining 10% will use VDSL technology.
The Government predicts that by the end of next year, up to 77% of premises will have access to high speed broadband, up from 52% in 2016.
It claims that by the end of 2020 the majority of the remaining homes and businesses will be able to access high speed broadband.
It has not said when the entire population will be able to get high speed connectivity.
The Eir agreement commits to connect 95% of houses at the standard regulated connection charge.
It also guarantees that all the 300,000 premises will have a minimum download speed of 30Mbps and 6Mbps upload.
Source: https://www.rte.ie/news/2017/0404/865085-cabiner-broadband/