Blacknight has joined the National Broadband Ireland project as a retailer to expand its growing broadband business.

NBI broadband through Blacknight will be rolled out nationally as the new network is built, the company said.

Customers can search for their address on Blacknight's website to check their eligibility and then sign-up to pre-order the service. If NBI fibre is not available, other broadband options will be shown.

In the NBI roll-out, 8,000+ premises in Carlow, 18,300+ in Kilkenny, 79,000+ in Cork, 15,300+ in Wexford, 26,900+ in Kerry and many more all over Ireland will be eligible for fibre broadband.

“Rural businesses can finally get broadband speeds that simply weren’t available before,” said Blacknight CTO Paul Kelly.

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“The frustration of distance, antiquated hardware, and slow speeds will be a thing of the past.”

Blacknight CEO Michele Neylon (pictured) added: “Let’s face it - the new reality post-pandemic is hybrid or remote working, and the one thing consumers and businesses need to make it work is high-speed internet.

“For too long, rural areas have been underserved by big broadband providers, high-speed options simply didn’t exist for them. Now, with the rollout of NBI, hundreds of thousands of businesses can come online and operate at the same high speeds that have been available elsewhere.”

National Broadband Ireland has been criticised for the slow rollout of the subsidised fibre broadband network. In parts where the NBI network is live, internet users are noticing the difference.

Neylon cited the example of customer Simon Woodworth a cyber-security lecturer at University College Cork. He’s been relying on slow DSL for years, and with lockdown tried to use fast wireless, but it proved unreliable.

According to Woodworth: “Download speeds are very close to 1Gb/s which is incredible this far out in the countryside in Ballywilliam,” he said. “Before it was frequently as bad as 1Mmb/s and sometimes non-existent. The speed difference is just incredible.

“But it isn’t just about speed. It’s about having a broadband service good enough that I no longer have to worry about it, the same way most people nowadays accept rural electricity as a reliable service.

“This is all great for working from home as I can pull down large lecture videos in seconds. Netflix is now effectively instantaneous when before it would buffer constantly. And finally, I can now entertain backing up about 1.5Tb of photos to the cloud to keep them safe.”

NBI chief executive Peter Hendrick commented; “As a wholesale provider, NBI is making the new Fibre-to-the-Home network available to all Retail Service Providers (RSPs) operating in the Intervention Area.

“By joining the NBI project, Blacknight is ensuring that customers will have more choices when it comes to connecting to our high-speed broadband network. As an increasing number of homes and businesses are being connected by Blacknight and other RSPs, we are confident that the rollout will continue to gather pace throughout the country.”