SIRO has announced The Brewery in Dundalk as its first Gigabit Park.
The open-access wholesale broadband provider is delivering Ireland’s first 100% fibre-optic broadband network. The connections are available to 39 businesses in the park, provided by SIRO’s retail partner Digiweb. SIRO’s Gigabit connectivity will allow businesses to avail of broadband that is three times faster than the best service available in Dublin (350 Mbps) and 10 times more powerful than the fastest average internet speed in Ireland.
Commenting on the announcement, SIRO's Chief Commercial Officer, Ronan Whelan, said: “We are delighted to boost the success of companies in residence at The Brewery Business Park. Dundalk was the first town in the country connected to the SIRO network and the demand has been phenomenal to date. This announcement forms part of our strategy to revitalise towns across Ireland by sparking a digital transformation, helping to attract investment and encouraging more people to establish businesses in regional towns like Dundalk."
Digiweb provide several 100% fibre-optic broadband packages for both residential and business customers. The company's “Electric Broadband” services went live in Dundalk in 2016, and Operations Manager, Brendan McGahon talked about the profound benefits this has delivered to businesses: “Companies at The Brewery Business Park now have access to the gold standard for broadband internationally and we have no doubt that it will enable them to reach new heights.”
SIRO is a joint venture of ESB and Vodafone which is investing €450 million in building Ireland’s first 100% Fibre-to-the-Home (FTTH) broadband network to 50 towns and city areas throughout Ireland. Using the existing ESB network, SIRO delivers fibre-optic cables all the way to the building. This technology, known as Fibre-to-the-Building, has no copper connections at any point to slow down the network and delivers 1 Gigabit speeds. The wholesale broadband operator’s network now has 11 retailers offering connections to over 250,000 homes and businesses in 45 towns across the country. SIRO is offered on an open-access basis to all telecoms retailers in Ireland and has so far has formed partnerships with 11 operators – Vodafone, Digiweb, Sky, BT, Carnsore Broadband, Rocket Broadband, Kerry Broadband, eNet, Airwire, Pure Telecom and WestNet. More retailers are expected to come on board as the company drives competition in the wholesale broadband market.
In regards to Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK, the government announced in 2018 a long-term strategy to implement full fibre broadband for all new build homes and a new priority to connect hard-to-reach rural areas, which you can read about here.
