Dublin City Council, Ookla and the City Telecoms Association have partnered on a first-of-its-kind study that uses crowdsourced data to show how cities can improve connectivity and tackle the digital divide.
The Irish capital worked with Ookla to leverage anonymised network data to identify gaps in telecoms infrastructure, particularly in underserved areas, giving Dublin valuable insights into mobile network performance, and enabling the city to make data-informed decisions to enhance digital inclusion.
“Digital connectivity is such a critical component of urban competitiveness we were keen to understand Dublin’s performance and also to identify gaps and the reasons for these gaps,” Jamie Cudden, Smart City Manager, Dublin City Council, told Cities Today. “Ookla has its EMEA headquarters in Dublin so there was a unique opportunity to join forces on this work and demonstrate how data-driven insights could support our city telecoms programme.”
Cudden’s smart city team combined GDPR-compliant data from Ookla’s platform with other sources, such as internal city asset registries, mobile site location maps from Ireland’s telecoms regulator, and government data on social deprivation in Dublin.
Visualising network performance
Through geospatial analysis and computer vision techniques, the city created a localised, tile-based grid that visualises mobile network performance across Dublin.
“This level of granularity was simply not attainable with other bespoke network testing solutions, which lack deep city-wide scale and fail to accurately capture the true user experience in bread-and-butter use cases such as video streaming, web browsing and gaming,” Luke Kehoe, Industry Analyst from Ookla, told Cities Today.
Each time a user presses “Go” on Speedtest, Ookla captures precise, anonymised data on the performance of their network connection. In addition to consumer-initiated testing, the company collects billions of samples daily across both mobile and fixed networks. These samples measure throughput, radio signal levels, network coverage and availability, and quality of experience (QoE) metrics.
The report identifies five critical areas of the city–Ashtown, Beaumont, Cabra, Clontarf and Harold’s Cross–where network performance is below acceptable thresholds. With the new data, the council can now develop targeted interventions to address infrastructure gaps.
Dublin is also optimising city-owned assets for telecoms deployment, supporting equitable access to rooftop spaces and enhancing multi-operator site sharing. This strategic use of assets aligns with European regulations and Dublin’s competitive telecoms goals.
Dublin’s innovative approach to governance
In 2022, Dublin City Council established a ‘Telecoms Unit’ to centralise and streamline functions related to telecoms and digital infrastructure.
“Working in a big organisation such as the city council where we have over 6,000 staff, multiple departments and asset owners, makes it challenging for external telecoms companies to request access to assets whether its underground ducting, rooftops and street furniture,” said Cudden. “Traditionally it can be incredibly difficult to navigate. Having a one-stop shop with agreed protocols on how to request access to assets and also putting in place standardised legal agreements can accelerate rollout of critical telecoms infrastructure.”
With the expected growth of small cells and the densification of mobile networks, local authorities will need to play a more proactive role in supporting the rollout of next generation networks, which is mandated by the EU’s Gigabit Infrastructure Act from 2025.
“The convergence of high-impact regulatory developments, like the Gigabit Infrastructure Act, alongside growing operator demand for street-level small cell deployment on city assets, necessitates a step-change in how cities approach telecoms infrastructure,” added Kehoe. “The common telecoms challenges faced by cities across Europe make this partnership a practical blueprint for leveraging network performance data to address the digital divide and improve connectivity for all.”
To download a free copy of the report, see: https://institute.cities-today.com/report-a-data-driven-model-for-urban-connectivity
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