22/07/2003

Minister launches broadband mission

Enterprise Minister, Ian Pearson today announced the launch of a major Europe-wide tender for broadband services in Northern Ireland.

It is hoped that the multi-million pound investment will see the whole of Northern Ireland with broadband access within the next two to three years.

The Minister said: "One of our main challenges has been to provide comprehensive and equitable provision of broadband services. This competition has been primarily designed to address this challenge in order to progress development of both our knowledge based economy and digital inclusion.

"This tender for the provision of broadband services is the latest in a number of measures by my Department and Invest Northern Ireland to promote the telecommunications agenda. Other measures include technology trial initiatives under the UK Broadband Fund, support to proposals for flagship broadband applications, and demand stimulation aggregation exercises."

Today’s announcement follows the publication of a Prior Information Notice in the European Journal on 7 May giving advance notice of a further initiative to advance Government’s telecommunications agenda.

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