Ireland won the European Commission's blessing today to spend €170 million of public funds to equip 120 towns with broadband Internet access and help it catch up with EU counterparts.
Under EU rules, state aid must be cleared by the EC and direct funding must be justified on the grounds that it would be of broad economic benefit and that such a need would not be provided by the market.
Ireland lags behind most other EU countries in broadband Internet penetration.
The Government has decided to build open, carrier-neutral, fibre-optic networks in about 120 towns where such infrastructure is not supplied by market players.
"The open networks will enable all operators to offer high-speed broadband services to businesses and citizens in the towns concerned," Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes said in a statement.
The broadband networks, which will be co-financed by the European Union's regional development funds, will be public-owned, but their management and exploitation will be tendered to a wholesale operator.
In the "old" EU-15, broadband take-up in Ireland ranks second lowest, just above Greece. In late 2005, only 5.3 per cent of the population had broadband connections.
