This is a subscriber-only article
The remaining bidding consortium has submitted its final tender to deliver the National Broadband Plan, the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment Denis Naughten confirmed in the Dáil this Tuesday .
"Today marks a historic milestone… earlier, the remaining bidder submitted its final tender to my Department. Over the coming weeks, my department will review that," Naughten said, adding that despite it being just one bidder it still had to meet the required standards.
However, he avoided questions from other TDs on how much delivery of the plan will cost taxpayers.
Remote areas
Naughten revealed that the bidding consortium, led by Granahan McCourt, is proposing a "fibre to home solution" and will have access to 1.2m open eir poles. The plan would open up remote areas that are classified as being in an "intervention area", including 56,000 farms.
The submission nominates a number of partners for the project – enet, Nokia, Actavo, The Kelly Group and KN Group. Ireland’s largest open-access network operator enet, the company that manages the State-owned Metropolitan Area Networks (MANs), will be an integral part of the ongoing operation of the network when built.
Technology partner
In addition, Nokia, the multinational data networking and telecommunications equipment company, has been nominated as one of the key technology partners. National Broadband Ireland’s partners for the construction phase of the project include Actavo, The Kelly Group and KN.
We look forward, subject to being awarded the contract, to delivering world-class high-speed broadband to every home, farm and business in the intervention area
“We are delighted to submit our final tender to the Department, which is a significant milestone for the development of broadband infrastructure in Ireland,” David C. McCourt, founder and CEO of Granahan McCourt said.
“The consortium is committed to the project’s success from a policy and a commercial perspective and we look forward, subject to being awarded the contract, to delivering world-class, high-speed broadband to every home, farm and business in the intervention area.”
Granahan McCourt is a US-based telecoms investment fund and has joint ownership of enet with the State-backed Irish Infrastructure Fund.
“Much has been said about the 30Mbps target set by the NBP, but the network we intend to build is a gigabit network, capable of delivering 1,000Mbps,” Peter Hendrick, National Broadband Ireland’s bid director said.
SHARING OPTIONS: