Case study
Ireland’s National Broadband Project - Independent Certification
In 2012, the Irish Government announced Ireland’s National Broadband Plan to connect some 564,000 premises in an intervention area not adequately served by the Market. In 2019, National Broadband Ireland was awarded this project with a budget of €2.6 billion and an estimated time of seven years to build the network and is managed by The Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications (DECC). The contract between DECC and NBI mandated the appointment of an Independent Certifier to ensure that the network is built in accordance with the contract and achieves value for money.
Following a comprehensive procurement process, Novegen Ltd and Crowe Ireland were appointed as the Independent Certifier in March 2021 in a tri-partite agreement with NBI and DECC.
National Broadband Ireland Project’s Commitment
The National Broadband Ireland Project aims to connect over 1.1 million people across Ireland.
Challenge
The contract between DECC and NBI includes a very comprehensive test strategy outlining the acceptance criteria to be met by NBI to trigger network acceptance and payment. The contract also includes a range of financial, network performance and customer connection Service Level Agreements to be met. The challenge for Novegen was to implement the processes and procedures to test the network against these test criteria and SLA before issuing Milestone Achievement Certificates within strict contractual turnaround times. There are over seven hundred milestones to be certified in accordance with the terms of the Independent Certifier contract.
Solution & Responsibilities
Implementing an Open Access Telecom Infrastructure
Novegen built a team of experienced office and field-based personnel to deliver this project. We utilised various technology platforms to streamline and automate the processes to ensure that Milestones were certified in line with the Independent Certifiers’ contractual obligations.
Responsibilities
- Review and certify design and build milestones to ensure network quality, contract compliance and value for money.
- Review and provide ongoing observations on the test strategy.
- Ongoing analysis of the certification process to identify efficiencies.
- Ongoing auditing of network build processes.
Deliverables
- Milestone certification of the design and build of defined Deployment Areas.
- Milestone certification of Operational and Wholesale Product systems.
- Milestone certification of Customer Connections.
- Effective stakeholder engagement and management.
Progress So Far
As of June 2025, Novegen has successfully issued 599 milestones upon completion of 361K premises passed and 130K premises connected by NBI.
Of the 227 Deployment areas, 221 have passed the design stage, and 135 have passed the build stage.
Current project status
Progress as of 21.08.26. Source: nbi.ie