ESB and Vodafone announced this week their partnership on a new wave of hyper-fast broadband coming to half a million Irish homes and businesses. The project will run new broadband cables over ESB electricity lines. The cost is estimated at €450 million.
And it is expected to be unfathomably fast!
Get ready for 1,000 megabytes per second
While current best speeds in Dublin are a pretty fast 100-250mbs, most of the country outside the City Centre is making do with barely 5% of that speed. 1,000mbs is mind-blowingly fast. This is radical and forward thinking from these companies and with government support.
Enda Kenny described broadband as “the critical infrastructure of the 21st century”
This is exciting stuff for any lucky residents in the path of these super-optical broadband cables. And they will be even more overjoyed to hear they are getting this incredible service before Dubliners. That’s a first! It’s because Dublin already has UPCs fibreoptic broadband which provides speeds up to 250mbs. It’s enough that Siro doesn’t need to complete there just yet.
The first 10 “fibrehoods”
ESB and Vodafone announced the first 10 towns that will be hooked up to this new service. They are:
- Cavan;
- Dundalk;
- Westport;
- Castlebar;
- Sligo;
- Carrigaline
- Tralee;
- Navan;
- Letterkenny;
- Wexford.
Although we are jealous, it’s good to see these areas have been chosen. The potential boost to the local economy in terms of new local jobs, better access to education and improved communication will be huge. Not to mention the benefit to households, these internet speeds will encourage the location of major multi-national industries to these areas if they need futuristic broadband speeds for their processes.
The service has been nicknamed “Siro” and is expected to reach 25,000 homes and businesses by the end of this year, with the rest over the next 3 years to a total of 40 regional towns.
