Introduction

These pages summarise the various options for home users or businesses who wish to avail of broadband Internet access in the Kildare area. It also gives details of the Group Broadband Scheme (GBS), which allows any community in Kildare to avail of broadband Internet access despite their location in the county.

Beginner's Guide to Broadband

Q: So what is broadband Internet access ?

A: Broadband Internet access, due to its speed, provides massive advantage to home-users, students of all levels, businesses and for attracting new business to an area. Currently the Internet can be accessed from home by “dialling up” to an Internet service provider. This service is known as “dial-up” and was the only method of accessing the Internet through the phone line before broadband became available. The problem with “dial-up” is that it is very slow and often too slow to use comfortably.

Broadband is simply faster Internet access, so downloading music or files is much faster and you don’t have a long wait for Internet pages to appear. Broadband can offer speeds at around 20-50 times the speed of traditional dial-up Internet access.

The good thing about “dial-up” is that anyone with a phone line can use it regardless of their location in Kildare. That is still the case and despite its lack of speed at least everyone with a phone line can avail of it.

One issue with broadband is that unlike dial-up it is not available to everyone through the phone line as discussed below, so other broadband methods must be looked at.

Types of Broadband

Broadband through your phone line (DSL)

Accessing the Internet through your phone line is possibly the preferred choice of home and business users. This option is unfortunately not available for all Kildare residents, due to the fact that not all telephone exchanges and phone lines have been upgraded. Phone lines in the large towns such as Naas, Maynooth and Newbridge are typically suitable however outside of the large towns the local telephone exchanges have generally not been upgraded. This is a nationwide problem with our telecommunications system and providers. In summary most of rural Kildare and parts of urban Kildare cannot avail of broadband Internet through their phone line. As a result in the past year many rural Kildare communities have availed of the government’s Group Broadband Scheme to try to bring broadband to their area.

Wireless Broadband (Fixed Wireless Access, FWA)

For those who cannot access broadband through their phone line or choose not to there are a couple of alternatives. Firstly Wireless access does not depend on your phone line or telephone exchange therefore it is a decent alternative. It does need a ‘line of sight’ to your home, so if your house is surrounded by hills or large trees you may have difficulty obtaining wireless broadband access to the Internet. Wireless broadband compares favourably for speed and cost to the phone line alternative, particularly where it is provided through a group scheme.

Satellite Broadband

Similar to Wireless broadband, this broadband option does not rely on the phone line or telephone exchange. Again, satellite broadband does need a ‘line of sight’ to your home, so if your house is surrounded by hills or large trees you may have difficulty obtaining satellite broadband access to the Internet. Because the Internet is delivered to your home via a satellite a great distance away, there are concerns that this type of access is not ideal due to delays or ‘latency’ in the service. This is mainly a problem if you are using the Internet to play Internet games. Satellite broadband compares favourably for speed and cost to the phone line or wireless alternatives, particularly where it is provided through a group scheme.

The Group Broadband Scheme – www.gbs.gov.ie

The lack of a broadband service in rural Ireland is one of the reasons for the existence of the Department of Communications Group Broadband Scheme (GBS). Each county has a GBS co-ordinator, whose role is to help communities find a suitable company to bring broadband to their area.

This is a very simple scheme for the community to get involved in and thankfully the community workload is very light. The community simply collects names of individuals or businesses who might avail of broadband if a service was introduced into their area. Once a community has a minimum 25 names on a list, with the help of the co-ordinator they select a suitable company to bring broadband to their area. It is then the companies responsibility to complete all paperwork and to liase with the co-ordinator.

A step by step guide on how a community takes part in the Group Broadband Scheme is shown below.

“So how do I get Broadband in my area?”

Identify the need for broadband. A list of 25 (minimum) potential broadband subscribers must be put together by the community or Internet company. This can be done easily from lists in shops or a public meeting. Individuals do not have to commit to take broadband just express an interest.
The Co-ordinator has a list of relevant Internet companies to choose from.
Internet company in agreement with the community puts an application for funding together, verifies it with the GBS Co-ordinator and submits the application to the Department of Communications, Marine and Natural Resources.
Application is approved and broadband service is implemented. Funding of 28% of costs is paid to the service provider as an incentive to bring broadband to the unserved communities.

Broadband Internet Service Providers

There are numerous Internet Service Providers in the Kildare area, some of which are currently operating Group Broadband Schemes as well as providing a service to individual homes and businesses. Some of these providers are linked below and can be contacted to ascertain if they are providing a service in your area. The Department of Communications has made this list available of service providers they familiar with.

Download County and Group Broadband Schemes document (.pdf, 297kb), provided by the Department of Communications, Marine & Natural Resources.