enet today announced that the Kingspan Group recently took two connections on the MAN infrastructure in Kingscourt – one to their corporate headquarters and one to their manufacturing facility. Significantly, these are the first connections to the Kingscourt MAN and have seen the local network activated. In addition, Kingspan have also taken another MAN connection in Castleblaney.
In March, Kingspan extended BT Ireland’s contract to manage their global network which connects their global offices to the Irish headquarters site in Kingscourt. This is achieved using BT’s Global IP Connect service with the Kingscourt site accessing the service via enet’s Metropolitan Area Network.
Ricky McKenna, Kingspan’s IT Manager, added, “Telecoms connectivity and bandwidth are an essential part of our day to day business operations. The ability to connect securely with and respond to customers, suppliers and colleagues is imperative. Particularly with our Kingscourt site being at the heart of so much of the company’s international activity, access to the Metropolitan Area Network (MAN) is seen as a huge advantage.”
Colm McVeigh, Head of Marketing, Product and Strategy, BT Ireland commented, “BT is at the forefront of the roll-out of next generation networks in Ireland. For companies such as Kingspan that require global reach, BT has the ability to deliver services in 197 countries and territories and provides speeds of anything from 64Kbps-1Gbps globally, with future plans for even faster access. We have worked with Kingspan to connect all of their Irish and global sites to a single managed network for voice, data and video applications. The regional MANs in Ireland continue to be an important access option for our customers, and the MAN in Kingscourt offered an excellent upgrade for Kingspan’s headquarters connection to their wide area network.”
On making the announcement, Conal Henry, enet CEO said, “When it comes to technology, I think that people can overestimate the short term value and underestimate the long term value. The same can be said for the MANs. enet’s experience is that, over time, the existence of a MAN has a vital and major impact on the range, quality and value of communications solutions for businesses and homes. Having activated the MAN in Kingscourt, we look forward to delivering the same exciting results to the local businesses in the area.” Henry went on to say, “I also think the activation of this MAN signals enet’s intent to do everything in our power to address the backhaul challenges faced in some MAN towns.”
Colm McVeigh, BT Ireland concluded, “The solution offers multiple access speeds and technologies, from ADSL to Ethernet, to enable Kingspan to connect sites of all sizes. It also enables them to prioritise network traffic to ensure that each business application performs well across the network whether voice, video or email. It reduces total cost of ownership because all of the complexities of designing, maintaining and managing the network are the responsibility of BT.”
Kingscourt is one of eight MAN-enabled towns in the Cavan / Monaghan area, the others being Cavan Town, Bailieborough, Cootehill, Monaghan Town, Carrickmacross, Clones and Castleblaney.