First 10 towns on new superfast broadband plan announced

As many as half a million homes and businesses in 50 Irish towns will be able to access super-fast fibre broadband through a joint venture rolled out by the ESB and Vodafone.

Dubbed Siro, the new company – which will employ around 60 people – will run fibre broadband cables over ESB electricity lines as part of an investment programme worth €450 million. The new infrastructure will give more than a million people across rural Ireland access to broadband speeds of as much as 1,000Mbs.

The first 10 locations, dubbed Ireland’s first Gigabit towns or “fibrehoods”, to be included in Siro’s roll-out are Cavan, Dundalk, Westport, Castlebar, Sligo, Carrigaline, Tralee, Navan, Letterkenny and Wexford.

Construction on the network begins this summer. The initial phase of the project, which consists of 50 towns, is expected to be fully rolled-out by the end of 2018, with scope for a second phase to run in parallel that will reach 300 smaller towns.

Speaking at the launch of the new service, the Taoiseach Enda Kenny described broadband as “the critical infrastructure of the 21st century” and said it had the potential to change the world in the same way that steam power and electricity did in previous centuries.

“We already know some areas that will be revolutionised by universal access to high speed broadband – healthcare, education and communication to name a few,” he said. “Running a rural business and creating new jobs will be just as dependent on broadband as it is on water or electricity.”

The new infrastructure will create 60 jobs directly and another 200 construction related jobs as it builds its new network. Mr Kenny said it was “the start of a new era for broadband investment in Ireland. In conjunction with other private sector investment we will see a revolution in Irish broadband speeds in Ireland’s towns across the next three years”.

He said that by the end of 2016, 1.6 million homes and premises or over 70 per cent of the country, will have access to high speed broadband thanks to the significant investment of commercial companies.

“But without further intervention there will remain an unacceptable digital divide between rural and urban areas. The Government’s National Broadband Plan to deliver high speed broadband to all non-commercial rural areas by 2020 will see that divide eliminated,” Mr Kenny said.

Minister for Communications Alex White said the new service would “revolutionise” how consumers and businesses experience broadband and added that it would complement the Government’s National Digital Strategy which aims to connect all rural areas not attractive to commercial operators to the broadband network.

“It is encouraging to hear that the joint venture has ambitions beyond the first 50 towns, and that further phases covering smaller towns will be considered,” Mr White said.

Siro was described as a “transformative project” by the head of Vodafone Anne O’Leary. She said it would “provide the connectivity required to put Ireland on an equal footing with some of the most competitive economies across the globe.”

She added that the project was being “held up internationally as an example of unique innovation where telecoms operators can re-use existing national electricity infrastructure to provide broadband right into customers’ homes and businesses”.

“As an organisation that sits at the heart of towns and communities across the country, ESB takes immense pride from the fact that Siro’s 100 per cent fibre-to-the-building broadband network will be a key enabler for a knowledge based, services led economy and will transform the internet experience of SMEs, remote workers and consumers in regional Ireland,” added the ESB’s chief executive Pat O’Doherty.