A new survey from TIF (Telecommunications and Internet Federation) estimates that a €3.6bn investment will drive the telecommunications infrastructure over the nest five years.
Of this figure, private industry will spend over €3.2bn. Government spending totals over €400m, an unprecedented over investment says Tommy McCabe, TIF Director.
However McCabe warned that serious debate will be needed if the country wants to establish a clear strategy that will make the best use of this multi-billion euro investment.
To this end 15 CEOs from the largest telecoms organisation in Ireland will put forward their views at today’s TIF conference on the future of telecommunications and the business strategies that will support this future.
“This scale of investment will create a whole new level of performance from the networks, enabling a host of services that were previously unavailable,” said McCabe.
“The capacity to deliver multimedia in real-time is the biggest step forward and will enable features such as video calling; streaming; mobile TV; video-on-demand services and high quality VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol).
This mix and co-existence of new services will encourage convergence, says McCabe, as companies begin to go beyond their traditional offerings such as telco’s providing IPTV and TV companies offering voice services.
McCabe feels that this development will not lead to one dominant technology in the telecoms sector, instead feeling that it will be ‘technology neutral’.
“There is no expectation that a single platform will dominate telecoms in the near-term,” he said.
“While we expect a move towards standardised core networks such as IMS or IP, there will always be a variety of access technologies. Fibre, copper, cable, wireless, mobile and satellite each have a role to play,” he concluded.
By Marie Boran
