2Gbps ‘wireless fibre’ service to be deployed across Dublin

17 Jul 2008

A data communications firm with significant fibre and wireless assets across Manchester and Liverpool is to deploy 2Gbps wireless broadband across Dublin for select business customers, siliconrepublic.com has learned.

Metronet is entering the Irish market as part of a joint venture with a local management team led by Martin Smyth and will establish a subsidiary MLNet.

The company Manchester Metronet was formed after acquiring the dark fibre assets of Atlantic Telecom and more than £10m sterling worth of wireless infrastructure.

Operational since 2006, Manchester Metronet has acquired more than 140 customers and became the first company to support wireless IP CCTV video streaming across an urban wireless wide area network (WAN) and the first to install a wireless gigabit connection in the UK.

John Earley of Manchester Metronet told siliconrepublic.com that the Manchester Police use the CCTV service to detect and identify number plates across the city using automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) and the system has already helped in solving crime.

Martin Smyth explained the company is seeking to engage with An Garda Síochana and a number of local authorities to utilise the DVD-quality ANPR service in the fight against crime.

Smyth said MLNet will focus primarily on the business-to-business (B2B) marketplace and will compete head-on with BT, UPC and Eircom and providers like Irish Broadband.

Earley explained that deployment of the MLNet service has already commenced in a number of key locations, such as business parks in Dublin.

By John Kennedy

John Kennedy is a journalist who served as editor of Silicon Republic for 17 years

editorial@siliconrepublic.com