Eircom to connect 100,000 homes to fibre by 2012

Irish operator Eircom this week announced it will invest €100 million to roll out fibre broadband to 100,000 homes and businesses by the summer of 2012. "Our investment of over €100 million underlines the company's commitment to be the nation's network provider of choice, and to support economic growth in Ireland," Paul Donovan, CEO of Eircom, said in a statement Thursday.Phase one of its plan involves replacing old copper wires with a mixture of Fibre-to-the-Home (FTTH) and Fibre-to-the-Cabinet (FTTC) infrastructure. Customers connected via FTTC will see speeds of up to 40Mbps, while those hooked up to FTTH connections may reach speeds of up to 150Mbps, said Eircom.
An Eircom spokesman told Total Telecom that the telco has yet to determine what proportion of the 100,000 premises will be upgraded to FTTH, and how many will be connected FTTC, commenting that it depends on the exchange.After phase one the telco hopes to continue its investment into fibre-optic technologies, and plans to extend its network to cover 1 million homes by the end of the three-to-four-year process.
It is still unclear how many phases there are to Eircom's next-generation network plan, either."We're not 100% sure," said Eircom's spokesman. "That is a question to be determined."However, he insisted that the company is confident it will reach its target of connecting 1 million premises.As well as broadband, Eircom plans to use its fibre network to offer a range of IPTV, video on demand (VoD), and catch-up TV services. It currently offers a music streaming service called MusicHub, and believes that the new services will compliment its current portfolio.

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