National Broadband Ireland has said that by the end of the year a total of 221,000 premises - or 40% of planned area - will be under construction, up from 28% last year.
NBI is rolling out the new high-speed fibre broadband network under the Government's National Broadband Plan (NBP).
Today it issued a progress update which showed strong momentum across all 26 counties. It added that premises passed is due to increase by 291% to 102,000 homes by the end of 2022.
David McCourt, Chairman of National Broadband Ireland, said the leading indicators give the company confidence that this ambitious project can and will be delivered on time and on budget.
"Our ability to move premises from the construction phases to the order phase is seriously ramping up which means users can reap the benefits of the transformational network sooner," Mr McCourt said.
NBI chief executive Peter Hendrick said that early take-up of services on the NBI network are already exceeding 30% in many of the initial deployment areas and it’s growing all the time
"By comparison with any national or international comparison this is indicative of very high uptake levels, substantially ahead of initial expectations," Mr Hendrick said.
"Ultimately, we are confident of an overall take-up of approximately 85% and already have some 50 broadband providers signed up to sell services on the NBI network," he said.
"This platform competition is expected to bring significant benefits directly to consumers by ensuring that bundled voice, broadband and TV packages offer real choice at competitive prices," he added.
