News
Broadband roll-out starts to speed up
High-speed broadband will be rolled-out to almost 13,000 homes and businesses across County Galway in the next seven months.
Broadband provider, eir says a further 20,000 premises in the county by 2020 will benefit from its investment in fibre, which provides far faster connection and download speeds.
The new fibre broadband also gives more reliable and consistent internet connections, according to the company.
Currently, some 63,000 businesses and homes in Galway are connected to the fibre broadband service, which the company formerly known as Eircom claims delivers 1Gbs, or 1,000 Mbs broadband speeds.
Orlagh Nevin, of open eir, the wholesale division of eir, says some 12,900 Galway premises will be connected to fibre broadband between now and the yearend.
“We have a longer term plan for County Galway that includes adding around 20,000 more from 2017 onwards,” she says.
The areas and number of homes in each area to be connected by eir by the end of 2016 are located in all corners of the county, including: Oranmore (850), Athenry (800), Costello (370), Barna (240), Claregalway (1,400), Kilcolgan (1,150), Moycullen (800), Ballyconneely (340), Belclare (510), Cor na Mona (100), An Cheathrú Rua (480), Craughwell (770), Indreabhán (690), Kinvara (780), Rosscahill (430), An Spidéal (660), Turloughmore (830), Ballyglunin (1,030), Castleblakeney (350) and Maree (320).
The company says it is investing €30 million to roll-out high-speed broadband throughout Galway. By 2020, more than 100,000 homes and businesses in Galway will be connected to this fibre broadband, which is faster.
This, eir says, is part of a national investment of €400 million.
The fibre cables, which will be installed by eir’s in-house staff as well as contractors, are thin and will have no noticeable visual impact, says Ms Nevin.
Businesses and residents will have minimum disruption during the works, which may involve changing the broadband box in their premises.
The benefits of faster broadband are wide-ranging, says Ms Nevin.
“The existing customers would have just the basic broadband, a DSL connection, and depending on the package they would have speeds of five, six or seven megs. Under the fibre-to-home or fibre-to-the-cabinet, they will have broadband speeds of up to 100 megs,” she says.
It’s not just faster speeds of download, but it’s also more reliable. Access to the broadband is not shared and so there are no ‘dips’ in connection speeds, regardless of the number of devises in the household or business that are connecting, she says.
The new broadband is ‘future-proofed’, she says, and will meet the needs of broadband now and the demand into the future.
Faster broadband is not just for personal and business use, and can benefit farmers, too.
“We have one farmer who uses it to keep an eye on heifers when calving . . . there is CCTV in his shed and it’s connected to his iPhone and iPad through broadband. He can be in bed and keep an eye on what’s happening.”
The company is hosting an information session in Athenry this (Thursday) morning to explain to the community what its plans are and how faster broadband can benefit people living and doing business in County Galway.
Businesses who have experienced the fibre broadband will be on hand to give personal accounts of how they have benefited from it.
CEO of eir, Richard Moat, and representatives of the company will attend Athenry Community Hall, Clarke Street at 11am. They will update politicians, community and business representatives, and other ‘stakeholders’.
Interactive maps of broadband coverage in the county will be available for inspection and locals can pinpoint their homes or businesses.
There are some areas that are not commercially viable for eir to connect and so the Government will intervene with subsidies as part of its National Broadband Plan.
In the coming months eir, as well as five or six other broadband providers, will bid for the tender to roll-out high-speed broadband to these ‘blackspots’, which are not economically viable for the commercial sector to cover.
Significant state investment is required to address ‘shocking’ inequalities that leave cancer patients in the West at greater risk of succumbing to the disease.
A meeting of Regional Health Forum West heard that survival rates for breast, lung and colorectal cancers than the national average, and with the most deprived quintile of the population, the West’s residents faced poorer outcomes from a cancer diagnosis.
For breast cancer patients, the five-year survival rate was 80% in the West versus 85% nationally; for lung cancer patients it was 16.7% in the west against a 19.5% national survival rate; and in the West’s colorectal cancer patients, there was a 62.6% survival rate where the national average was 63.1%.
These startling statistics were provided in answer to a question from Ballinasloe-based Cllr Evelyn Parsons (Ind) who said it was yet another reminder that cancer treatment infrastructure in the West was in dire need of improvement.
“The situation is pretty stark. In the Western Regional Health Forum area, we have the highest incidence of deprivation and the highest health inequalities because of that – we have the highest incidences of cancer nationally because of that,” said Cllr Parsons, who is also a general practitioner.
In details provided by CEO of Saolta Health Care Group, which operates Galway’s hospitals, it was stated that a number of factors were impacting on patient outcomes.
Get the full story in this week’s Connacht Tribune, on sale in shops now, or you can download the digital edition from www.connachttribune.ie. You can also download our Connacht Tribune App from Apple’s App Store or get the Android Version from Google Play.
On the eve of completing his 150th marathon, an odyssey that has taken him across 53 countries, Loughrea’s Marathon Man has announced that he is planning to hang up his running shoes.
But not before Jarlath Fitzgerald completes another ten races, making it 160 marathons on the occasion of his 60th birthday.
“I want to draw the line in 2026. I turn 57 in October and when I reach 60 it’s the finishing line. The longer races are taking it out of me. I did 20 miles there two weeks ago and didn’t feel good. It’s getting harder,” he reveals.
“I’ve arthritis in both hips and there’s wear and tear in the knees.”
We speak as he is about to head out for a run before his shift in Supervalu Loughrea. Despite his physical complaints, he still clocks up 30 miles every second week and generally runs four days a week.
Jarlath receives injections to his left hip to keep the pain at bay while running on the road.
To give his joints a break, during the winter he runs cross country and often does a five-mile trek around Kylebrack Wood.
He is planning on running his 150th marathon in Cork on June 4, where a group of 20 made up of work colleagues, friends and running mates from Loughrea Athletics Club will join him.
Some are doing the 10k, others are doing the half marathon, but all will be there on the finishing line to cheer him on in the phenomenal achievement.
Get the full story in this week’s Connacht Tribune, on sale in shops now, or you can download the digital edition from www.connachttribune.ie. You can also download our Connacht Tribune App from Apple’s App Store or get the Android Version from Google Play.
From the Galway City Tribune – An impassioned plea for a ‘masterplan’ that would guide Galway City into the future has been made in the Dáil. Galway West TD Catherine Connolly stated this week that there needed to be an all-inclusive approach with “vision and leadership” in order to build a sustainable city.
Deputy Connolly spoke at length at the crisis surrounding traffic and housing in Galway city and said that not all of the blame could be laid at the door of the local authority.
She said that her preference would be the provision of light rail as the main form of public transport, but that this would have to be driven by the government.
“I sat on the local council for 17 years and despaired at all of the solutions going down one road, metaphorically and literally. In 2005 we put Park & Ride into the development plan, but that has not been rolled out. A 2016 transport strategy was outdated at the time and still has not been updated.
“Due to the housing crisis in the city, a task force was set up in 2019. Not a single report or analysis has been published on the cause of the crisis,” added Deputy Connolly.
She then referred to a report from the Land Development Agency (LDA) that identified lands suitable for the provision of housing. But she said that two-thirds of these had significant problems and a large portion was in Merlin Park University Hospital which, she said, would never have housing built on it.
In response, Minister Simon Harris spoke of the continuing job investment in the city and also in higher education, which is his portfolio.
But turning his attention to traffic congestion, he accepted that there were “real issues” when it came to transport, mobility and accessibility around Galway.
“We share the view that we need a Park & Ride facility and I understand there are also Bus Connects plans.
“I also suggest that the City Council reflect on her comments. I am proud to be in a Government that is providing unparalleled levels of investment to local authorities and unparalleled opportunities for local authorities to draw down,” he said.
Then Minister Harris referred to the controversial Galway City Outer Ring Road which he said was “struck down by An Bord Pleanála”, despite a lot of energy having been put into that project.
However, Deputy Connolly picked up on this and pointed out that An Bord Pleanála did not say ‘No’ to the ring road.
“The High Court said ‘No’ to the ring road because An Bord Pleanála acknowledged it failed utterly to consider climate change and our climate change obligations.
“That tells us something about An Bord Pleanála and the management that submitted such a plan.”
In the end, Minister Harris agreed that there needed to be a masterplan for Galway City.
“I suggest it is for the local authority to come up with a vision and then work with the Government to try to fund and implement that.”
Families queue up for school’s offer of free house
West has lower cancer survival rates than rest
Galway minors continue to lay waste to all opponents
Gardaí and IFA issue a joint appeal on summer road safety
Marathon Man plans to call a halt – but not before he hits 160 races
