What is Broadband?

Broadband is a type of internet connection that has high speed capabilities for transferring data. Before broadband was available, the most common internet access was achieved with ‘narrowband’ dial-up connections; this was very slow by current standards. Today, broadband is a much faster connection that allows us to do so much more on the internet.

The National Broadband Plan

The National Broadband Plan (NBP) is a government initiative to deliver high speed broadband services to all businesses and households in Ireland. The NBP defines high speed broadband as a minimum speed of 30Mbps always-on download and 6Mbps upload.

At the moment, progress on national broadband services are being achieved through a combination of:

• Commercial investment by the telecommunications sector
• State intervention in those areas where commercial providers acting alone will not provide this essential service