€450m rural plan for broadband

Super fast access to the internet will be made available to provincial areas under a joint commercial €450m venture as efforts continue to bridge the broadband gap between rural and urban Ireland.

Ireland will also become the first European country to use existing electricity infrastructure to deploy fibre optic cables directly into homes and businesses.

The joint project between Vodafone and ESB is separate from investment and efforts by the Government to inject funds into getting broadband into villages and isolated areas in the country.