CABLE TELEVISION operator UPC is to launch Ireland’s fastest residential broadband service next month, when it introduces a 30MBit/sec product. The current fastest service is the 24MBit/sec service from Smart Telecom, while the fastest service from Eircom operates at up to 7MBit/sec.

UPC, which paid €700 million to acquire cable and MMDS operators Chorus and NTL, has invested €400 million in its networks so it can offer broadband and phone services.

Mark Coan, marketing and sales director with UPC, said the firm would invest an additional €90 million in its networks next year. Demand for higher speeds is being driven by growth in bandwidth-intensive applications such as online gaming and downloading music and video, he said.

Mr Coan pointed to research from Gartner which suggests that by 2013, 30 per cent of home broadband connections will operate at speeds in excess of 25MBit/sec.

“There’s nothing above 24MBit/sec in Ireland today,” he added. “DSL maxes out at around that speed – where that ends, cable really begins.”

UPC plans to have a 120MBit/ sec service available by August 2010.

Mr Coan said that for the last two quarters, 60 per cent of all new broadband connections were via cable rather than DSL, which is delivered over copper phone lines.

UPC says that currently about one-third of Irish homes can receive the service which it is branding Fibre Power. This will increase to 50 per cent by 2011.

New data from the Central Statistics Office show that broadband access for businesses remained high in 2009, with 84 per cent of companies using high-speed internet connections to go online.

The latest information society statistics show that 95 per cent of all enterprises had a computer connected to the internet, with high-speed DSL broadband used by 45 per cent of enterprises, compared with 41 per cent in 2008.