enet and eircom Wholesale announced that national connectivity for the MAN in Birr, Co. Offaly is now available and in service using eircom Wholesale’s Next Generation Ethernet data product over the eircom NGN Core platform.
Commenting on the deal, Conal Henry, enet CEO, said, “This is a landmark development for Birr and regional Ireland in general. It has been our experience that the outcome for every MAN town largely depends on the availability of backhaul to connect the MAN to the wider, global network. While we have existing relationships with other suppliers, this agreement marks a major breakthrough in providing world class, open-access broadband in Birr and has the potential to be rolled out to other MAN towns nationwide.”
Commenting on the announcement Chris Hutchings, MD eircom Wholesale, said “We are delighted that enet has chosen NGN Ethernet to provide backhaul connectivity from Birr. They join 14 Operators providing service using the Next Generation Ethernet product over the eircom NGN Core network. To date, we’ve installed NGN capability in over 600 urban and provincial locations, enabling the provision of ultra high-bandwidth connections of up to 1Gb/s to operators and enterprises in these and surrounding areas.”
The telecoms industry has responded positively to this announcement with Neil Wisdom, Sales Director of Complete Telecom stating, “Complete Telecom has provided high speed connectivity to FÁS in Birr on the back of this initiative, so we recognise it as a step in the right direction. Anything that drives down MAN interconnect costs is obviously welcomed by the operators as well as being well received by end users.”
enet is Ireland’s largest open-access telecoms network operator and the company responsible for managing the State’s Metropolitan Area Network programme.
eircom Wholesale is the division of eircom responsible for providing open Telecoms access, traffic and infrastructure services to over 60 National and International service providers, using the national reach of the eircom network with more than 12,000 kilometres of fibre and the world class capacity of its NGN core network.