In January 2016 enet, Ireland’s open access telecoms provider, launched a fibre infrastructure network in rural North Kerry, backed by an investment of €650,000. Since the deployment, enet now offers one Gigabit-per-second broadband to over 350 premises. Of this 95% are residential.
As part of the installation process, enet built 25 kilometres of network, which was a mixture of newly constructed and re-used third party infrastructure. To demonstrate its clear high-speed broadband capability, enet has solely funded and built this network. Furthermore, end users now have a range of affordable solutions from a choice of service providers, a fact that is facilitated by enet’s genuinely open access model. There are currently six retail service providers, Bbnet, eir, Kernet, Kerry Broadband, Permanet and Ripplecom, offering broadband services to householders over enet’s network.
Conal Henry, Chief Executive of enet said: “From the outset, enet wanted to demonstrate its expertise and capability to deliver ‘fibre-to-the-home’ in rural Ireland. At the start of 2016, we focused on a showcase project in Kerry and in over nine months we have delivered on our promise to residential and business customers. Instead of talking about ‘fibre-to-the-home’, our team has built a fibre infrastructure and showed a real understanding of what it takes to stimulate demand locally.”
enet operates a nationwide fibre infrastructure including the State’s Metropolitan Area Networks (MANs), as well as one of the largest fixed wireless networks in the country. The company’s network coverage represents a single, integrated, nationwide platform and makes it easier and cost-effective for over 60 different telecoms carriers to offer world class broadband to over 600,000 individuals, homes and businesses across the country.