Eircom To Offer Super Fast Broadband

Eircom has said it is to offer customers super fast broadband of up to one gigabit per second.

A total of 66 communities throughout Ireland will benefit from the scheme.

The development will see the roll out of fibre to the home (FTTH) technology; this is where fibre optic cable is routed into users' homes.

At the moment, most high-speed broadband connections involve running fibre optic lines to a cabinet in the street, with just the section running into a dwelling over copper wire, which limits the speed of the connection.

Work is expected to begin on the new connections from next month, with Cavan town, Kilkenny city and Letterkenny town the first locations to be offered the service. Construction is expected to take approximately six months.

While detailed rollout plans for each community will be announced in due course, eircom has said customers' connections will only be provided where demand for faster connectivity emerges.

Welcoming the announcement, Richard Moat, Acting CEO, eircom, said: "Today demonstrates the flexibility and scalability of our future proofed fibre network. Building on our existing network design, end to end fibre connectivity supporting speeds of one gigabit, is the natural next step in the evolution of our network capability.

"This announcement underlines eircom's ambition for Ireland and our ambition as the country's leading telecommunication provider to rollout new technologies that enable and encourage economic growth. Once again we will demonstrate our expertise and ability to deliver network investment more efficiently and at lower cost than other operators."

(JP/IT)