Eircom claims it has the largest fibre footprint in Ireland

28 Mar 2014

Carolan Lennon, managing director of eircom Wholesale

Eircom today claimed it has the largest fibre footprint in Ireland – capable of reaching 750,000 customers – and reported it has connected its 100,000th paying fibre customer.

The company also said that there are currently 15 operators using the fibre network.

Last November, Eircom increased its planned national fibre footprint from 1.2m homes and businesses to 1.4m homes and businesses across Ireland.

Last week, Eircom announced it had become one of the first telecoms companies in the world to deploy VDSL2 Vectoring technology in its Next Generation Fibre Access network, boosting broadband speeds up to 100Mbps.

By July 2016, it estimates 70pc of the country across 26 counties will have access to fibre broadband speeds of up to 100Mbps.

The fibre rollout programme will bring speeds of up to 100Mbps to 100 communities in Ulster, 148 communities in Connacht, 276 communities in Munster, 345 communities in Leinster, as well as an additional 82 communities across Dublin also included.

Ambition

“We are constructing Ireland’s largest fibre network and we are investing more than any other operator in fibre broadband,” said Carolan Lennon, managing director of eircom Wholesale.

“Our ambition is simple – we intend to bring high-speed broadband to as many parts of Ireland as is economically viable for us.

“Our network will be capable of providing speeds of up to 100Mbps to hundreds of thousands of homes and small businesses, not just in large urban areas but in places like Oranmore, Youghal, Dingle, Lahinch, Cobh, Edenderry and Ardee.

“We are over halfway through our rollout plan and already we have the largest fibre footprint in Ireland. The reality is we are bringing high-speed broadband to more customers in more communities across the entire country than any of our competitors.”

She added: “Building on this, for those areas not covered by our commercial rollout, we are deploying significant resources in an effort to win the Government’s National Broadband Plan tender. It’s worth highlighting, in this regard, that we have the national network reach and the technical expertise we’ve gained in our fibre rollout to date.”

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

editorial@siliconrepublic.com