The Irish ministry of communications has presented its final Report of the Mobile Phone and Broadband Taskforce, with 40 measures on how the country can accelerate the delivery of its telecom infrastructure. The report comes ahead of Ireland’s National Broadband Plan rollout, aimed at bringing high speed broadband to all premises throughout the country.
Minister for Arts, Heritage, Regional, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs Heather Humphreys said that the appointment of a broadband officer in every local authority will help assist deployment on the ground in every county nationwide. Funding for this measure will come from the ministry, with officers also acting as a single point of contact for parties building out infrastructure. The ministry will also work with the local authorities to develop local digital strategies.
Other actions outlined in the report include measures to streamline and prioritise planning procedures for telecoms infrastructure, a licensing regime to allow people to boost their home signals using repeaters, the build out of new ducting along the M7/M8 motorway, measures to help stakeholders make informed choices in relation to their network provider and handsets, and general network improvements.
The ministry for communications will work with telecom operators and regulator ComReg to identify and then deal with mobile blackspots, including through the possible assignment of spectrum in the 700 MHz band. To assist consumers to make informed choices on products and network services, ComReg will develop and publish a new network coverage map, and develop a testing regime to establish the performance of mobile phone handsets.
From the first quarter of next year, all Local Authorities will apply waivers in respect of development contributions for telecoms infrastructure developments. The Department of Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government will bring forward legislation to allow current planning exemptions for 3G antennas to extend to 4G antennas, and will review the Planning and Development Guidelines.
Transport Infrastructure Ireland has started work on a 95 km duct along the M7/M8 motorway; this will complete ducting on the Cork-Dublin route. Transport Infrastructure Ireland has also committed to reviewing the cost of access for telecoms operators to its ducts. ComReg will introduce a licensing regime for repeaters in 2017. This will allow householders and businesses to install high quality signal repeaters on their buildings, to boost in-house signals.
Finally, planning guidelines will be reviewed to ensure consistency by local authorities, and planning application processes will be streamlined. An Implementation Group will be established to drive and monitor the implementation of the actions in the Taskforce report, with an annual forum so that stakeholders can discuss wider issues impacting on the rollout of telecoms infrastructure.
The Taskforce noted that mobile operators are completing the upgrades of their 3G and 4G networks following ComReg's 2012 multi-band spectrum auction. At least one operator now has over 90 percent population coverage with 4G. ComReg expects to allocate spectrum in the 3.6GHz band in 2017. This will release an additional 86 percent of spectrum capacity into the market.
Budget 2017 includes EUR 8 million to free up the 700 MHz spectrum band, particularly important in rural areas. It is expected that the band will be cleared for use by the telecoms sector in 2020. Around 1.4 million premises now have access to high speed broadband, with further investment promised. The procurement process for the State Intervention is also well underway. The three bidders in the process have indicated that they will propose a predominantly fibre-to-the-home network for rural Ireland.
Source: https://www.telecompaper.com/news/irish-govt-presents-telecom-infrastructure-action-plan--1177047