Consultation investigates Northern Ireland rural broadband coverage

Northern Ireland's Department of Enterprise, Trade and Investment (DETI) has opened a public consultation into rural broadband coverage.

A document has previously been published by the DETI highlighting communities in which broadband services are poor or choice of provider is limited.

However, the department admits that while "reasonable care" was taken in preparing this report, it may still contain gaps.

Consequently, the DETI has launched a consultation in a bid to identify the last remaining postcode areas across the country that are still stuck with broadband speeds of less than 2Mbps.

The move comes as part of the UK government's plan to deliver super-fast broadband to at least 90 per cent of Northern Ireland by 2015, with minimum 2Mbps downstream speeds for "virtually all" remaining properties.

Highlighting the problem of poor connectivity in some parts of Northern Ireland, an Ofcom report revealed the country has the highest proportion of households with speeds of over 24Mbps, but one-quarter of residents receive less than a tenth of that figure.

Furthermore, only 54 per cent of Northern Irish consumers can take advantage of 3G mobile broadband coverage, compared to 95 per cent across the rest of the UK.