Telecoms operator Imagine Communications is investing ¤100 million in the roll out of a next generation wireless broadband network.
Based on WiMax technology the service will launch commercially on October 27th and will be available to 250,000 homes in Dublin, Wexford, Sligo, Tralee and Athlone by mid-November. Imagine plans to provide coverage in an additional 15 towns and rural areas each month. The company said it will have coverage of 90 per cent of the country by 2012.
Imagine says it will create an additional 200 jobs as a result of launching the service.
Pricing details for the service were not provided at yesterday's launch in Dublin but Imagine's chief executive Sean Bolger said the broadband and telephone service would be 50 per cent cheaper than similar services from Eircom.
Mr Bolger said the initial ¤100 million consisted of a mixture of debt and equity with Motorola providing technical support. Intel, which has been championing WiMax globally, is also supporting the Irish launch.
"The proposition is very simple - we are providing a fourth generation network for Ireland delivering European broadband speeds at European prices," said Mr Bolger.
Highly critical of the current state of broadband quality, cost and availability Mr Bolger said there was significant pent up demand for the service which will initially be available at speeds of 7Mbits/sec.
"The state of the Irish infrastructure is such that there is a deficit in broadband," said Mr Bolger.
The quality of the access network is very bad so you are getting poor quality broadband and you are paying a very high price for it. Obviously the situation with Eircom where it has failed to invest in the infrastructure has left us where we are and the lack of effective regulation has prevented investment.
The service will be available in homes and businesses as a replacement for fixed line broadband services but also supports mobile access.
Imagine operates the Gaelic Telecom brand in association with the GAA. It has 17,000 business customers, 115,000 residential phone customers and 80,000 broadband customers.
In April 2008 Imagine acquired wireless broadband provider Irish Broadband from its major shareholders NTR and Kilsaran Concrete in a ¤47 million deal which largely consisted of Imagine taking on the loss making providers debt.
Irish Broadband's existing network of high sites and towers is being used as the base for the launch of the WiMax service.