Fresh delays in the much-vaunted but poorly thought out National Broadband Plan will mean that rural areas are likely to remain without access to broadband facilities until 2020 at the earliest.
Effectively, around 1m people will now remain offline for years to come yet.
The delay stems from the fact that the previously announced connection date of 2019 will not be met, as the tendering process has not been finalized.
The National Broadband Plan has been mired in controversy for some time, and things came to a head with the recent resignation of former Minister for Communications Dennis Naughten in recent weeks.