In the locations where people can get cable broadband in Ireland, half of all fixed residential broadband customers are signing up with UPC, said marketing and sales director at UPC Ireland, Mark Coan, today.
He was announcing the connection of UPC’s 100,000th broadband customer, and said the “inescapable conclusion” to draw from UPC’s experience is that where people are given a choice of cable broadband, they’re deserting Eircom and DSL “in droves”.
“In line with our commitment to make the digital world ‘simply for everyone’, we have made a huge breakthrough in broadband availability and subscribers. Over 460,000 homes are broadband-enabled across UPC’s network as of 30 September 2008, and we’re targeting to have over 500,000 by year end.
“Based on the latest ComReg (Commission for Communications Regulation) report, the fixed residential broadband penetration in Ireland is close to 40pc, and cable has acquired 14pc of the market so far.”
In 2008, UPC introduced two speed changes, and now offers consumers three tiers starting at 3Mbps and moving to 10Mbps, and reaches up to 30Mbps with unlimited usage downloads included in the top two tiers.
This move was part of a general trend in the market towards providing higher speeds as consumers increasingly want to support online applications such as video streaming, online gaming or the sharing of multimedia files such as photos and films.
By Sorcha Corcoran
