Broadband company to create fifty jobs in Mullingar

As unemployment soars in Mullingar and Westmeath, some good news emerged last week.Mullingar-based broadband company Satellite Broadband Ireland announced that it will create a potential fifty jobs locally over the next eighteen months, as part of the roll-out of rural satellite broadband services across Ireland.The Knockdrin company, which is run by Kevin Ryan and Seán Óg Brennan, is to begin recruiting for twenty initial staff positions immediately, with openings in accounts, sales, telesales, customer service, office admin and engineering. All of the posts will be situated in Mullingar, where the company plans to open its base of operations at Lough Sheever Corporate Park.The new €7 million satellite broadband network - announced by communications minister Eamon Ryan recently - will see Satellite Broadband Ireland link up with international satellite company Eutelsat, through which the network will be rolled out in Ireland.The partnership means that the Mullingar firm can immediately offer Ireland"s rural homes - many of them currently without access to broadband - satellite broadband speeds of 2Mbps for just €29 per month, via Eutelsat"s new Tooway™ consumer internet access service.The Tooway™ solution consists of a small satellite dish and a modem connected to a PC via Ethernet, giving customers satellite-driven internet access following a simple installation.The €7 million investment by the Eutelsat group will involve the construction of a new satellite communications hub in Cork, as an essential part of the new KA-SAT infrastructure linking up with other hubs.KA-SAT, a revolutionary new communications satellite, will be launched by Eutelsat next summer, and will allow Satellite Broadband Ireland to offer satellite broadband speeds of between 10Mbps and 40Mbps to rural customers across the country.Kevin Ryan, co-founder of Satellite Broadband Ireland, said that the Eutelsat investment will be a great boost for Mullingar and rural areas of the Midlands in these recessionary times.He told the Westmeath Examiner that the partnership will allow the company to create twenty full-time positions, and up to forty positions including indirect employees. 'In line with projections, we expect to have fifty direct staff employed within eighteen months,' said Mr. Ryan, who expects business to increase substantially when KA-SAT becomes fully operational in the fourth quarter of 2010.He hopes that the availability of budget, quality satellite broadband will have a positive effect on the local economy.'You could almost say it"s recession proof. In today"s climate, not only are people losing jobs, but they also have huge overheads from working out of offices in towns, which they need to do because there"s no access to quality broadband in rural areas. They can now save money by choosing to shut down these offices, and basing themselves at home or in rural areas.'We feel that we have a unique opportunity to stimulate growth in rural areas, and to give the people of rural Ireland a choice which they never had.'Mr. Ryan said that before the company was established last year, satellite broadband had been very expensive, costing €3,000 for installation at one point last year, and between €400-600 per month for rental.'But we have gone to source to Eutelsat, the company which owns the satellites, in a partnership to offer people satellite broadband at the same price as a regular DSL connection,' said Mr. Ryan.He said that the new staff recruited over the coming weeks and months would help SBI deal with a 'massive potential for growth', the roll-out of satellite broadband across the country, and the company"s planned 'triple play' service - a package providing bundled access to satellite television, broadband and Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP, or internet telephony).The announcement of the Eutelsat investment has been welcomed by rural organisations across the country, including the Westmeath-based Irish Rural Link.