High-speed broadband connectivity provided by Three Ireland has had a transformative impact on Arranmore Island and its people. It has helped reverse population decline and given the island a significant economic boost by enabling remote working and the establishment of new businesses. It also supports the provision of healthcare, education and other services which is crucially important for the life of any community.
“The broadband internet connection has been as important to us as electrification,” says Arranmore Island Community Council chair Adrian Begley. “If you are going to move at the same speed as the rest of the country in terms of technology and job opportunities you need the same level of connectivity. We felt we were being left behind.”
That changed in 2019 when Three brought a dedicated broadband connection to the island’s community hub. “We did have internet on the island before the partnership with Three,” says Begley. “But it was a dial-up connection which was barely serviceable. It wasn’t secure or reliable enough for people to make life or business decisions.”
Population sustainability had emerged as a concern. “We could see it through the census that the future was not looking good,” he notes. “The numbers were dropping and dropping and dropping. That was highlighted by the fall in the number of young people needed to keep the schools open. Demographics were working against us. Forty-five per cent of the population over 65 and there we no young kids starting school. When you start losing services it’s very hard to get them open again. Islanders tend to be quite inventive and think out of the box. It’s part of our survival mechanism. We decided to form the island community council to do something about it.”
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It was decided to reach out to the island’s diaspora to seek their views. “We asked what they would need to make them consider moving home. Two things stood out – internet connectivity and employment opportunities. The two go hand in hand. If they aren’t there, people can’t come home. About 20 people said they would move home if the island had better connectivity.”
The island council obtained funding from the Department of Community and Rural Development to open a community digital hub. But there was no connection to support it. TV news coverage of the island’s plight and the community’s efforts to address it brought the issue to national attention.
“Three contacted us about potential connectivity solutions,” says Begley. “They came to the island and met us to see how they could help. They told us what they could do, and we told them what we needed. Our mindset up to then had always been focused on a cable connection. Three came up with the solution of a wireless point-to-point link to the hub to provide the broadband connection. It’s effectively a wireless leased line. People could use the hub to work from there. They put it in and it worked.”
It was very much a case of “build it and they will come”, Begley adds. “We opened the doors in April 2019 and in summer people coming home for holidays started using it, then digital nomads started using it and then we had people coming home to live as well as other people moving here who had no connection to the island before that, all because of the connectivity. We have a beautiful place in a beautiful location that’s not very hard to get to and the broadband connection has been a big shot in the arm for us. It’s been brilliant for building the community. We started seeing real changes and new faces on the island. Young families started moving back and we had more kids in school, greater use of services, and people bringing new business ideas.”
The dedicated wireless connection has since been augmented by Three’s best-in-class 5G broadband service, which has brought high-speed connectivity to homes and businesses throughout the island.
“The speed is amazing,” Begley says. “You can get hundreds of megabits while sitting on the beach. People can use it for remote working and businesses are able to use it for their point-of-sale systems and so on. The health centre, the digital hub, the post office, the schools, the holiday village, the ferry service, the emergency services, the RNLI lifeboat station they are all using it. All these things make a big difference. Kids using the internet in school probably take it for granted now. We’ve only had it for six years, but it seems like a generation ago.”
But the most important proof point is that the population has grown since 2019 and the advent of broadband connectivity from Three, with 18 per cent now working remotely. “People now feel secure that they can work and build a life here,” Begley concludes.
