Prepare to be dazzled: mega fast broadband is coming to town

Bandwidth-hungry businesses and consumers around the country received welcome news recently with the launch of Siro, the new joint venture between ESB and Vodafone. The new company is to invest €450 million in building Ireland's first 100 percent fibre-to-the-building broadband network which will offer speeds of between 200 Mbps and 1 gigabit to half a million homes in 50 regional towns.

The first 10 towns to be connected to the new network will be Cavan, Dundalk, Westport, Castlebar, Sligo, Carrigaline, Tralee, Navan, Letterkenny and Wexford.

This is the first time that a European national electricity network has been used to bring fibre broadband services to people's homes. This is not the only aspect of the new service that makes it unique, according to Siro chief executive Sean Atkinson.

Despite being a joint venture involving a leading broadband provider, the Siro network will be a wholesale open access network open to any provider to use, so customers will not have to change accounts to access it. “It will be completely open access and non-discriminatory,” says Atkinson. “We are talking to all the major operators at the moment about the network and what we will be able to offer. We will not become a direct provider ourselves.”

The new broadband network will use the ESB’s local distribution infrastructure with fibre being carried on poles and then in ducting under the ground alongside the electricity cables. “ESB works up in the hot sections of the poles where the electricity cables are carried,” Atkinson says.

“In the US you see multi-utility poles which carry various services including phone, fibre internet and electricity. The other utilities are carried lower down the poles than the electrical cables. Using the underground ducting to get into the towns is the difficult part.” The speeds being offered are almost unimaginable in comparison to what many of the areas are currently experiencing. This is due to another unique aspect of the service. “The new network will be 100 percent fibre-optic, there will be no copper or coaxial cable used. It’s powered by light and this will allow us to offer those tremendous speeds of up to one gigabit.”

The idea of using the electricity network for this purpose is not entirely new. “Timing has a lot to do with it,” says Atkinson. “ESB has certainly been thinking about this for a long time but if you look back even 10 years, broadband wasn’t a critical issue for businesses and consumers. The demand is there now. Telecoms and electricity utilities have traditionally been separate, but our two parents are both leading international companies with the technological and infrastructural expertise to make Siro a reality. This project demonstrates how a commercial semi-state is making efficient and effective use of its assets, along with Vodafone’s fibre expertise, to deliver world leading speeds to the Irish market.”

The potential economic impact of the project is enormous, according to Vodafone Ireland chief executive Anne O'Leary. "There will be 200 jobs created during the construction phase and another 60 in Siro itself. However, the benefits to the overall economy will extend far beyond that. As a result of this project, 50 regional towns will have access to a 1 Gigabit 100 percent fibre broadband connection, putting them on a par for high speed connectivity with leading international hubs such as Tokyo and Hong Kong. As a result, the towns to be connected will ultimately have the same economic opportunities as those that are available in Dublin."

Construction work is about to begin on the first phase of the project. “We spent the first half of the year preparing to start. We had to build a new infrastructure company from scratch,” says Atkinson.

“We are appointing contractors on a regional basis at the moment. The first area to start will be the North-East region, which will include Dundalk and Cavan town. The current plan is to reach all 50 towns by the end of 2018. That could accelerate, depending on how things go. We have to get all the contractors bedded in and then see how fast we can run. We hope to have six of the first 10 towns connected by the end of this year.”

A second phase is already being contemplated. “We have ambitions to reach another 500,000 customers across 300 smaller towns around the country after that. But at the moment we have shareholder approval for phase one and we are not looking much beyond that. We can start investigating a second phase in parallel to the roll out of phase one, depending on progress.”

The company has also indicated an interest in tendering for the government’s national broadband plan later this year which is aimed at bringing high speed broadband to rural Ireland.

There are also competitive benefits in the shorter term. “This project is 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,” says O’Leary.

“It is Ireland’s first fully open access network, which is a huge positive as it will drive welcome competition in the market and much needed investment in broadband infrastructure across regional Ireland.”