1Gb broadband for town when SIRO's work is completed
Eilís Ryan
A major infrastructural project being undertaken in Mullingar at present aims to leave the town with 1GB broadband availability by the end of this year.
The company SIRO, a joint venture enterprise set up by the ESB and Vodafone, is using the existing electricity infrastructure as the anchor for the open-access fibre-optic cable that will be opened up to broadband providers who will offer the service to customers.
“We’re building a 100 per cent fibre-optic broadband network,” said Aoife Ní Lochlainn, Pubic Policy manager with SIRO, as she gave a presentation on the project to members of Westmeath County Council’s Mullingar Municipal District members last week.
The bad news was, however, that for the moment, rural areas are completely out of the frame – and there is an area of Mullingar’s Ballymahon Road being excluded for technical reasons.
Ms Ní Lochlainn said that there is a digital divide, with fast broadband in the cities and a lag in the regions. She said the average in Dublin is currently 45 Mbps; in Westmeath, it is 21 Mbps, while the average across Ireland is 14 Mbps.
“When we look at the reason for that, it’s really a historical reason: an over-reliance on copper in what we call ‘the last mile’ of network, that is the access to the home,” Ms Ní Lochlainn said, explaining that because of this, the supply gets “bottlenecked”.
She said that as a result, Ireland needs to roll out more fibre-optic cable, which is what SIRO is doing, meaning that direct to every premises, there will be fibre-optic cable, and no use of copper.
Ms Ní Lochlainn said that the 2016 Indecon Report on Ireland’s digital economy placed a current value on that economy of €12bn and predicted direct employment of 175,000 in the sector by 2020.
However, she said, 24 percent of those in rural/regional Ireland say their broadband is too slow and 18 per cent say they cannot get broadband.
“What SIRO is doing is building a future-proofed network,” Ms Ní Lochlainn explained.
Phase 1 of this work covers 50 large towns – and both Mullingar and Athlone are on the list. After that, there is a list of 320 smaller towns to be done.
Ms Ní Lochlainn said that the company is using the existing electricity network to build out its network, so it is building around Mullingar town and then in to a hub.
“We follow the electrical path as it goes around the town,” she said, explaining that where the electricity lines go overhead, so too does SIRO’s cable; where it goes underground, SIRO’s cable does likewise.
Mullingar is divided into 10 “clusters”, covering around 7,800 homes and business premises. So far, the work has been completed in five of those cluster areas.
Cllr Sorca Clarke praised SIRO and asked that it consider covering areas not currently on the list but that would greatly benefit from the firm’s service, while Cllr Ken Glynn mentioned outlying hinterlands “just a mile or so outside the town”, and Cllr Johnny Penrose asked when they envisaged rolling out their technology to the 320 smaller towns.
Ms Ní Lochlainn said the company is focusing first on the urban boundaries of towns.
“Before we go into a town we extensively survey to see what we can deliver,” she said, going on to point out that there is an economic cost to moving beyond those boundaries.
“Unfortunately, we can’t build in areas where it is uneconomic for us to do so,” she stated.
Ms Ní Lochlainn explained that rural areas fall where it is not economic for broadband providers to roll out a high-speed network fall under the ambit of the National Broadband Plan.
“That tender process is ongoing and we are one of the bidders,” she said.
However, she continued, regarding the Phase 1 operation, the rollout to 50 larger towns, the likely completion schedule is 2018/2019, but the company will not be waiting to complete these before beginning work on the next 320 towns: “We are actively looking at the next phase,” she said, adding that they would again be looking at what projects were economical and viable.