Ireland's Biggest Winners From 2023 National Broadband Plan

It's been five years since the Irish government signed off on the National Broadband Plan, which aims to bring high-quality fibre internet to over a million Irish residents. It pays particular attention to an intervention area spanning over 500,000 premises, 65,000 farms and approximately 1.1 million people living in them.

As new numbers roll in every year, it's easy to see who the biggest winners are from this plan. Here we've compared some of the biggest broadband speed gains between 2022 and 2023 below.

The National Broadband Plan

The National Broadband Plan (NBP) is a collaboration between the Irish government and the telecommunications industry. The NBP's main mission is to bring quality internet to every Irish resident, no matter if they live in an urban or rural area.

The benefits of quality internet speak for themselves. Online access is more important than ever, playing a big role in work, travel and entertainment. Many forms of entertainment have made their way online – everything from downloadable e-books to on-demand video streaming of your favourite movies or TV shows, old or new. Today, lacking an online presence is a significant disadvantage for most businesses. In Ireland, old pastimes like bingo or playing the lottery have also made their way online, helping to form the iGaming industry along with digital slot games and even live-streamed table games. It's no surprise then, that Ireland is home to a lot of big online casino companies including the online lottery of Lottoland Ireland which hosts slots, bingo and even tracks the results of sports events in real time. These digital services are accessible by all Irish residents, but only because iGaming companies and their user base can get their hands on a decent internet connection. In the business world, iGaming is just one model that would disappear without quality, affordable internet access.

Internet technology gets better every year, so communities that don't have good internet risk being left behind. Through their participation in the NBP, the Irish government is clearly concerned that agriculture, transport and sustainable development could struggle without access to the latest internet technology. In farming, the use of drones and other internet-controlled sensor devices can make this hard work more efficient, for example.

While it may have commenced in 2019, the NBP has been a long time coming. It was originally published in 2012 and, over the decade, over €3.3 billion of private investment has been pledged toward it. You can find a breakdown of the National Broadband Plan here.

Ireland's NBP Winners in 2023

The NBP's 2024 numbers won't be released until the year has concluded. Per the latest data, the NBP has covered 217,000 premises – roughly half of the plan. Using that data, we can take a look at the communities that benefited most from the 2023 rollout, measured by averaged broadband speed.

More than any other counties, Laois, Kilkenny and Monaghan saw the biggest improvements in internet speeds for 2023.

In Q1 of 2022, County Laois recorded 105.5 Mbps internet speeds. The home of the Rock of Dunamese saw speeds jump by 82% to 191.6 Mbps, from the latest available data for Q3 2023. By the time the NBP is finished with the county, residents can expect slightly faster speeds.

Behind Laois, County Kilkenny saw the second-biggest increase throughout 2022 and 2023. Residents living in the shadow of Kilkenny Castle started with the lowest download speeds at 92.1 Mbps but have since increased to 163 Mbps in that timeframe, a 77% leap.

In third place, County Monaghan made a roughly 50% increase in broadband download speeds. Curiously, it started with better speeds than both Laois and Kilkenny in Q1 2022, with 113 Mbps. Then it gradually declined in speed as work progressed throughout 2022. By Q1 2023, their speeds were at 103.3 Mbps. Then work started earnestly in the county, bringing that figure up to 168.5 Mbps by Q3 2023.

When this data was recorded, work wasn't done in these counties. Laois had 76% of premises covered while Monaghan had 62% covered. Kilkenny has even more room to improve with just 58% of homes covered under the NBP rollout. Since speeds are averaged, introducing new homes to the internet could bring speeds up or down, depending on the quality of infrastructure in place.

With Laois scraping 200 Mbps, these rural areas could receive internet close to Dublin quality, which was recorded at 220 Mbps. While the NBP does its work, private enterprises like SIRO are providing more support to Dublin, with further plans to roll out a €1 billion network enabling one gigabit per second speeds across the country.