Minister wants partnerships to create electronic network

The Government is to encourage a wide-ranging set of public and private partnerships to create a high-speed, multimedia-enabled telecommunications system.

It is understood that the first project will be a major Internet connection to Europe, nearly tripling the current 40 gigabit connection.

In a related development, a large international telecommunications company is set to become a major player, along with Telecom Eireann, in Ireland's drive to push its telecommunications infrastructure into an electronic commerce-based future, according to senior Government sources.

An announcement naming the company - which would be expected to locate some of its high-level Internet infrastructure in Ireland - is expected within three weeks.

Plans for the public and private partnerships were announced yesterday by the Minister for Public Enterprise, Ms O'Rourke, who said the Government was committed to ensuring that Ireland was well-positioned to avail of the opportunities afforded by the Internet and the related electronic commerce sector.

"We realise that not only must we have sufficient telecoms broadband capacity within the country but we must also have large-scale connectivity into the global telecoms networks and adequate Internet peering facilities." Internet peering arrangements between telecommunications companies ensure direct high-speed connections from one Internet network to another.

The partnership approach, which has been strongly advocated by the Minister's Advisory Committee on Telecommunications will involve developing proposals with the Industrial Development Authority and industry. It is seen as a way to kick-start the significant telecommunications investment needed if Ireland is to become an attractive site globally for e-commerce. Ms O'Rourke said the telecoms committee, which includes Irish experts as well as a number of internationally-known US telecommunications figures, stressed that movement on creating partnerships for investment should begin immediately, in advance of its final recommendations, due in November.

If Ireland is to be a European e-commerce hub, work must begin immediately to put in cabling and hardware connections, since networks can take several years to build.

It is understood that the partnership approach is intended to avoid squabbles over connectivity that have occurred in the past, most noticeably when arguments about bandwidth (the ability to provide large-scale Internet connections) erupted following software company Microsoft's decision not to locate a large Internet site in Ireland.

Instead, the partnership would presumably bring telecommunications and technology players into a more productive and financially-attractive arrangement, where they can benefit proportionally from each others' work. Ideally, partnerships would also lower the overall costs of building a network, said a Department spokesman.

The majority of funding for the network is envisaged to come from the private sector, with the Government providing some financial assistance. No Government support figure was available yet, said a spokesman.