Summary

  • ComReg’s Q2 2026 workbook reports fibre-to-the-premises availability at 87.1% and an FTTP take-up rate of 52.5%; they describe different stages and must not be subtracted.
  • The press release defines take-up by premises with FTTP available, while a generic workbook glossary sentence points to a combined FTTP-and-cable gigabit premises-passed figure. The mismatch should be clarified before analysts compare the rate across products or build a “coverage gap” from it.

Reach is a supply condition

A broadband map can look nearly complete while household adoption remains an open commercial question. ComReg’s Q2 2026 Quarterly Key Data Report puts FTTP availability at 87.1% of premises. It reports 91.9% availability for gigabit services delivered by FTTP or cable, and 52.5% as the FTTP take-up rate. The public release rounds these to 87%, 92% and 53%.

Those figures are not three readings of the same thing. Availability records whether a provider can supply a service to a premises under defined conditions. The workbook glossary says “passed” means the capability to provide broadband within standard timeframes and standard cost parameters. It does not say the premises has ordered service, that installation has occurred, or that the household considers the price affordable.

Take-up is closer to use, but it still requires a precise denominator. The Q2 release says 53% of premises where FTTP was available had an active FTTP service at quarter end. ComReg’s Q1 2026 HTML report states the formula explicitly: active FTTP broadband premises divided by premises where FTTP is available. That report lists 50.2% for Q2 2025 and 51.9% for Q1 2026; the Q2 release says 50% for Q2 2025 and 53% for Q2 2026 after rounding.

The Q2 workbook complicates that otherwise clear reading. Its generic glossary entry for “Broadband Coverage: Take Up Rate” says active FTTP premises are divided by the “total unique premises passed” figure calculated under “Total Gigabit (FTTP and Cable) Coverage.” Read literally, that sounds like a combined technology denominator, not FTTP-available premises alone. It may be generic wording, a workbook carry-over or a definition with a narrower technical interpretation. The public sources do not resolve which.

Three denominators, three decisions

The cleanest interpretation is not to calculate a gap by subtracting 52.5 from 87.1. One is a measure of reach; the other is an active-service ratio whose exact workbook denominator needs clarification. The difference between them is not a measured count of households that “could connect but chose not to.” Such a conclusion would assume matching universes, a stable denominator and household-level causes that the aggregate data do not show.

A third measure illustrates the distinction. The Q2 workbook reports 1,133,964 FTTP subscriber lines and 1,789,356 fixed broadband subscriber lines. The press release says FTTP made up 63% of fixed broadband lines, up from 56% a year earlier. These are subscriber-line counts, not unique premises. One premises can have more than one line, and a line is not the same unit as a serviceable address or an adopting household. The release contains a stray “million” after the FTTP line count; the workbook’s labelled value is 1,133,964 lines, not 1,133,964 million.

This is more than a copy-editing issue. Availability is an infrastructure-planning measure; take-up is an adoption measure; subscriber lines describe active services. Regulators, operators and investors need to know which question each number can answer. A figure can be accurate within its own field while misleading when moved to another denominator.

What the regional pattern can and cannot say

The release says every Irish county had at least 80% FTTP coverage and Westmeath had 95%. It also reports that 92% of FTTP lines were at least 500 Mbps, against 73% of all fixed broadband lines; 27% of fixed lines were at least 1 Gbps. Those facts show broad availability and a shift in the speed mix. They do not establish what households pay, how reliable service is at the router, whether a building is easy to install in, or why a customer remains on cable or another fixed product.

The workbook’s availability-age table adds a useful but limited signal. Marked “As at Q1 2026,” it shows reported take-up ranging from 23% where FTTP had been available for less than a year to 60% in areas with six to seven years of availability. The sequence is consistent with adoption taking time, but it is a cross-sectional grouping, not a panel tracking the same homes. It cannot prove that elapsed time caused the differences. The glossary ambiguity also means the series should be read with the same denominator caution.

The data are collected from authorised operators. The official data catalogue says not all operators are included and that ComReg aims to represent 95% of the total market. That is a stated coverage aim, not an independent completeness audit. ComReg’s map hub allows geographic exploration down to local areas, but geographic patterns cannot identify individual household reasons.

Specify the measure before scoring the market

Heng Lu’s Note 64 offers a useful design principle, not evidence about Irish broadband: define the minimum shared specification needed for comparison, then leave future choices with the actors who make them. Applied here, the minimum is straightforward: publish the numerator and denominator beside each rate, identify whether the universe is FTTP-only or combined FTTP-and-cable, and distinguish premises from lines.

That small discipline would make quarterly change more useful without pretending that a national ratio can explain each household. It would let an operator assess market conversion, a policymaker ask where affordability or installation barriers might merit investigation, and an investor compare deployment with revenue using like-for-like populations.

The key signal in Q2 is therefore twofold. Ireland’s FTTP footprint is extensive and its share of broadband lines is rising. At the same time, the adoption statistic should not be over-read until ComReg reconciles the Q2 glossary’s generic wording with its FTTP-specific public definition. Coverage tells the market where a service can be supplied; adoption tells it something about active demand only when the denominator is explicit.

Sources