Dublin City Council teams with Ookla to tackle telecoms deficits

Dublin City Council (DCC) has teamed up with connectivity intelligence firm Ookla and the City Telecoms Association to identify and tackle telecoms deficits in the Irish capital.

The partnership is regarded by its members as a first-of-its-kind initiative, and aims to offer a practical blueprint for cities across Europe to drive digital inclusion and optimise network outcomes through actionable, data-driven insights. It’s looking to demonstrate how a data-driven approach can enhance connectivity outcomes in a tangible way, empowering cities to better serve citizens.

In 2022, DCC established a Telecoms Unit to centralise and streamline functions related to telecoms and digital infrastructure in a dedicated unit in the city’s organisational structure. The unit is intended to serve as a one-stop shop for all telecoms-related activities in the city, offering a single point of contact for citizens, industry and public bodies to engage with.

The data-driven strategy is also being used to bridge digital divides, with analysis of how socio-economic factors affect connectivity outcomes, especially in areas with high social deprivation.

The collaboration saw Ookla collect Speedtest network data for 4G and 5G networks across the city over two 12-month periods (June 2022–June 2023 and June 2023–June 2024), with a sample size in the tens of millions.

Geospatial analysis created a localised tile-based grid across the entire city to categorise mobile network performance at different times of the day.

Performance was evaluated against two metrics: signal strength and download speed. Each location tile was categorised as unacceptable if it had less than 11 dBm signal strength and 5 Mbps download speed. Anything above 11 dBM and 5 Mbps was categorised as acceptable.

Through Ookla’s data, DCC has gained insights into its telecom performance relative to other European cities, highlighting areas of competitive strength in 5G availability and identifying room for improvement in 4G speeds​. This is said to have created the “most comprehensive” analysis of mobile network performance ever conducted at the city level in Ireland.

By using the Speedtest Insights platform, DCC was able to integrate other data sources, such as internal city asset registries, mobile site location maps from Ireland’s telecoms regulator, ComReg, and social deprivation data from Pobal.

Ookla’s real-world data has enabled DCC to pinpoint key areas in Dublin with significant connectivity issues, influencing policy and planning to prioritise interventions where they are most needed. The council has now launched a public educational initiative on telecom infrastructure, including visualisations of before-and-after network improvements from new site deployments, to engage citizens and increase acceptance of new infrastructure.

Commenting on the survey and the results, DCC smart city manager Jamie Cudden said: “To close this information gap, the City Council needed a bold new approach using best-in-class data from Ookla to support our telecoms strategy. By applying our own custom methodology, we were able, for the first time … to understand network performance in Dublin across different times of day, device types, and both indoor and outdoor settings – making this the most advanced city-led study of its kind in Europe to date.”