Europe is watching: How Ireland is creating the blueprint for others to follow

A Gigabit Society is the utopian vision outlined by the European Union, with the ambition to serve every household with a network capable of delivering a Gigabit service by 2030. David McCourt, founder and CEO of NBI, looks at the implications. 

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This isn’t just about making internet browsing incrementally faster or bringing Netflix to rural areas; it’s about fundamentally closing the digital divide that exists in every European country. The stakes are high. Those with a clear strategy have the opportunity to seize economic, social and environmental benefits that will be the envy of every other nation. 

Creating the blueprint

In 2019, the Irish Government forged its opportunity to create a blueprint for others to follow, developing its own National Broadband Plan. With the bold objective to build a new, future-proofed fibre-to-the-home network to connect every home, farm, school and business in the country that has been left underserved by commercial operators, the Irish Government developed its strategy to empower over 1.1 million people. The plan, which takes the form of a public private partnership with National Broadband Ireland, has become widely recognised as one of the most ambitious large-scale telecom rollouts in the world. 

In the first four years of NBI’s rollout of the National Broadband Plan, tremendous progress has been made. Over 90% of all premises have passed through detailed survey and design work, and over 80% have either completed construction or are currently under construction. Crucially, over 284,000 premises are now available to order services on the new fibre network, and NBI is operating at speed to complete all 564,000 premises in the rollout. 

Building this megaproject in one of the most rural countries in Europe comes with many challenges, but Ireland’s National Broadband Plan was recently placed in context by a fascinating study by Oxford University professor, Bent Flyvbjerg. 

Having reviewed more than 16,000 infrastructure projects from 20 plus different fields in 136 countries, Professor Flyvberg discovered that only half of one percent of global megaprojects come in on schedule, on budget, and deliver against their original policy objectives. 

This elite group is where NBI and Ireland’s National Broadband Plan sit, and the rest of Europe is watching. 

Listen, learn and collaborate 

Last month, NBI proudly hosted representatives from 26 other European nations as part of the European Broadband Competence Offices (BCO) Network, with each delegate grasping the opportunity to share insights and learn from NBI’s experiences. 

This shared sense of purpose fosters a digitally inclusive society and I strongly believe that it fuels progress. As Ireland hurtles towards becoming the most connected country in Europe, many people are asking what we consider the key components of this blueprint and execution plan to be.  

The first part is easy. Critical to the success of Ireland’s National Broadband Plan, NBI has built up a team of some of the best and brightest minds in global telecoms who intimately understand how to build and operate a world-leading open-access network. The result has attracted over 70 Internet Service Providers to sell service on the new national network. Customers trust that every decision NBI has taken is with a view to making the job simple for service providers to integrate and sell services in a simple, seamless manner. The byproduct of this is that these service providers can pass on the benefits to end users. 

Deploying cutting edge systems across survey, design and build practices has undoubtedly been crucial as well, but sometimes it’s the unsung decisions that make the biggest impact. For NBI, early technology choices have led to creating the most technologically advanced network operating environment in the world; a highly committed community-first stakeholder engagement strategy delivers demand stimulation results that are unheard of in other fibre rollouts; and investments in customer service capabilities have resulted in net promotor scores that are unparalleled in our industry. 

We’re all in this together

For any business or project to be successful, it takes a passion and commitment that has to be authentic. At NBI, we have the genuine honour to witness first-hand how the new NBP infrastructure rollout is transforming people’s lives. 

At an individual level, we see how farmers are revolutionising their practices and embracing technologies to not only yield a better financial return, but also lower their carbon footprint. We meet small business owners, who are using technology to scale their work and create new employment opportunities. We see community centres empowered to provide digital skills training for the elderly and coding lessons for juniors. 

But at a macro level, four years into this remarkable project, we’re starting to witness the rural / urban digital divide truly close, which is what this project was born to solve. 

As a resident of rural County Clare, I can attest to the challenges facing rural communities. But something remarkable is happening, whereby connectivity and access to technology is regenerating communities and giving people the means to choose where they live and work, with the freedom and opportunities that others take for granted. 

Since NBI’s work on the National Broadband Plan started with boots on the ground in early 2020, our work quickly scaled to see our teams operating across every county in Ireland. With the country divided into 227 ‘deployment areas’, NBI is constantly branching out in the rollout, bringing connectivity to thousands of new premises each and every month. 

Our North Star as a company must always be to serve the communities in which we do business in, and I’m proud to say that our board of directors, which benefits from both Irish and international expertise, has had the privilege to travel the breadth of the country with board meetings held in spectacular rural locations each year. This has seen us travel as a group to Valentia Island, Connemara, Newmarket on Fergus, Athlone, Castlemartyr, and Clare Island. 

This connection to the rural communities we serve is in the DNA of National Broadband Ireland and lives strong within the proud men and women who work across our teams, making it an essential part of the blueprint we’re forging. Lest we forget, we’re all in this together.