DUBLIN -- The Government’s National Broadband Plan (NBP) to extend high-speed broadband to all of rural Ireland over the next five years was welcomed today by Conal Henry, the Chief Executive of enet, which has built a 1 Gigabit-per-second fibre broadband network in rural North Kerry to showcase its capability to deliver the NBP programme. The network was officially launched this morning by An Taoiseach, Mr. Kenny.

Mr. Henry was speaking in Ballyseedy, Co. Kerry, at an event to mark the company’s construction and activation of its fibre broadband network. Costing €650,000 and providing fibre-broadband connections directly to approximately 340 premises in the locality, it is enet’s showcase project for the National Broadband Plan.

“We’re not here today to promise what we will do, but to demonstrate what we have done. We’ve funded and built this local network, and families here are now enjoying genuinely world class broadband services. Furthermore, end users have a range of service providers to choose from, a fact that is facilitated by our open access model,” Mr. Henry added.

An Taoiseach, Enda Kenny commented: "The National Broadband Plan is an essential component of the Government's plan to keep the recovery going by providing the necessary infrastructure for economic growth and job creation. I am pleased to launch enet's fibre broadband network for North Kerry today which is a welcome service for this part of the country which, like much of rural Ireland, has been lagging behind for too long. The Government is determined to eliminate the digital divide between rural and urban areas by delivering high speed broadband to all non-commercial rural areas by 2020. The funding for the roll-out of this has been allocated in the Government's capital plan."

enet