EIRCOM’S HIGH-speed next-generation broadband services will be available to 116,000 homes by next summer, according to the managing director of the former State telco’s wholesale division.

The heavily indebted firm is investing €120 million in a pilot of next-generation technologies in Sandyford, Co Dublin, and in Wexford. Over the summer, it announced an additional 10 exchanges would be upgraded to “next-generation access” which will provide speeds of up to 100 Mbits a second.

“We are rolling out at a really good time because there is a lot of proven technology around and there are next-generation technologies which can improve speed and capacity on the copper network,” said Chris Hutchings, managing director of Eircom Wholesale.

Eircom will be adding higher-speed fibre optics to its network which, in some cases, will enter customer premises and in others fibre will be run to the telecoms cabinet on the street. Mr Hutchings said newer technologies such as “vectoring” would be used to increase the speed and capacity of the copper link between the upgraded cabinet and the user.

The first customers have been connected to the pilot scheme in Wexford and Sandyford. The wholesale division is providing service to Eircom Retail, while Magnet is also reselling the service. Mr Hutchings said other operators were piloting services during the pilot but had chosen not to announce this publicly.

Some in the telecoms industry have criticised Eircom’s rollout plans, saying it has chosen areas to upgrade where cable operator UPC is already providing next-generation speeds but Mr Hutchings rejected that. He said the key criteria were to cover areas outside Dublin, have a mix of exchanges where fibre would run to the home or street level and get Eircom crews in different regions trained up on the new technologies.

Mr Hutchings joined Eircom in February having previously worked with BT and NTL in Britain. He subsequently announced a number of reforms to the wholesale operation and said Eircom was committed to working more closely with other operators.

“Clearly what one needs in wholesale reforms is better collaboration, better strategic relations with the licensed operators, and it’s a change in business model in reality for Eircom,” he said.

Since its privatisation in 1999 and subsequent changes in ownership, Eircom has had a poor record of working with other operators and has become involved in court cases with ComReg. However, Mr Hutchings said the telco was committed to working with other operators.

“The proof of the pudding will be in what we do. We’ve engaged with all the key customers on bilaterals. We’ve taken them through what we see as the appropriate wholesale reforms we want to see through. We’ve shared that with ComReg, ComReg have welcomed it.”

The reforms at Eircom would require changes to its internal processes and computer systems, but Mr Hutchings said the changes would be apparent by the end of the year and would be fully implemented by next summer.

Although Eircom is in negotiation with its lenders over its €3.75 billion debt, which may see its lenders take a stake of 15-25 per cent in the company, Mr Hutchings said the investment in next-generation was not in question.

Although Eircom was investing €100 million to connect 100,000 homes, he said the cost per home would drop as it upgraded future exchanges. He said there was a large “chunk of factory stuff” – ie back-end systems – in which Eircom needed to invest regardless of whether it was connecting one customer or several thousand.

“The next €100 million will enable us to connect a lot more exchanges,” said Mr Hutchings.