To ask the Minister for the Economy to detail (i) the number of phonecalls, from customers reporting issues with their service, that have been received by Fibrus Ltd in relation to new ultrafast broadband connections since the Executive’s Project Stratum commenced; and (ii) the current number of Fibrus customers.

The management structure for Project Stratum contains suitable tiers of coordination and project oversight, including a Project Board, a project management team and a number of dedicated officers to deliver specialised work packages. The structure follows HM Government best practice guidance and is based on PRINCE2™ methodology for project control and governance. Project oversight does not extend to call volumes or the nature of customer enquiries received by an Internet Service Provider (ISP) offering services to customers on the open access network that is being constructed under Project Stratum, and for which Fibrus Networks Ltd is the contractor.

Fibrus Networks Ltd manages a branded entity named HyperfastNI, which is the wholesale access network delivered by Fibrus Networks Ltd under the Project Stratum contract. HyperfastNI does not contract directly to end users and, therefore, does not receive phone calls directly related to customer services. All first line support calls would be answered by the retail service provider (for example: ‘Fibrus ISP’) with whom a customer will be contracted, and if unable to resolve, the call would be passed on to Fibrus Networks for further diagnosis and resolution.

Fibrus ISP does not differentiate customers delivered either as part of Project Stratum or commercial build infrastructure. In line with standard industry practise, the Department has been informed that Fibrus ISP does not publicly share statistics related to call volumes or specific customer enquiries.

The Department has not been made aware by the contractor, Fibrus Networks Ltd, of any unresolvable connectivity issues or issues of scale associated with customer service levels, based on access to new broadband infrastructure under Project Stratum.

(ii) Following contract award in November 2020, the deployment of infrastructure commenced immediately. Work is underway in the first five deployment areas: Coalisland, Killyleagh, Ballycastle, Kilkeel and Castlewellan.

To date, Fibrus Networks has completed work on over 2,500 premises through Project Stratum, and this will increase to more than 4,500 by the end of the current month. Fibrus Networks is on target to connect 19,500 premises by the end of 2021.