Six Irish towns to get broadband connectivity on a par with Tokyo
SIRO, a joint venture between the ESB and Vodafone, is planning a major expansion.
HALF A DOZEN regional Irish towns are set to get super-fast broadband as part of a €40 million expansion by telecoms provider SIRO.
SIRO, a joint venture between the ESB and Vodafone, is planning to invest €450 million building a fibre-to-the-building broadband network across Ireland.
The expansion means that SIRO services will be live or construction work will be underway in 17 towns across the country by the end of the year.
The six locations included in the new development, which will require an investment of €40 million, are Mullingar, Newbridge, Ennis, Portlaoise, Drogheda and Carlow.
SIRO’s network is already live in several regional towns, where the business said that it has had a “transformative effect”.
It said that several of the areas it has rolled out in, such as Tralee and Sligo, gained “the same level of connectivity as international hubs like Tokyo and Hong Kong”.
Drogheda, pictured, is set to be included in the expansion
Skibbereen
It also pointed to towns such as Skibbereen in Cork to demonstrate the possible benefits of the broadband rollout.
Since receiving improved broadband connectivity, Skibbereen has launched a seed fund aimed at attracting tech startups to the town. It is hoped that the initiative will create 500 jobs in five years in the West Cork region and provide a multi-million euro boost to the local economy.
SIRO CEO Sean Atkinson said that the joint venture “is passing 10,000 premises per month and working in 17 towns.”
He said that the improved broadband connectivity will give consumers and businesses in rural Ireland “access to far better services than that available in Dublin and other cities, reversing the digital divide and allowing them to compete more effectively for investment and jobs”.
“We have plans for a second phase which covers over 300 smaller towns and we are shortlisted for the Government’s National Broadband Plan which aims to deliver high speed access to all citizens by 2020.”
Speed
SIRO’s said that its fibre-to-the-building one gigabit service is “three times faster than the best service available in Dublin and over 10 times the best service available in the rest of Ireland”.
“Using the existing ESB network, SIRO is delivered by fibre optic cables all the way to the building,” it said.
It said that the technology has no copper connections at any point which would have the effect of slowing down the network.
“For example, a high definition film (4 gigabytes) takes one hour to download with a 10mbps connection – with SIRO it will take 30 seconds,” it claimed.
