Telecoms provider Enet is to invest €50m in fibre networks around the country over the next five years, allowing more service providers and businesses access.
Among the areas targeted for expansion by Enet are Dublin, where 45 kilometres of fibre will be installed on the north and west of the city, connecting all the major business parks in these areas, together with a new 10km network in north Dublin and a four kilometre backhaul and fibre infrastructure in west Dublin that will allow a further 500 and more businesses to connect.
Enet, which is part of the Speed Fibre Group, has expanded its Dublin Metro network by more than 18.5km between January and May this year, in areas such as Rathmines in Dublin 6 and Westmoreland Street in Dublin 2.
Enet says that it operates the largest alternative wholesale telecoms network in Ireland, at more than 5,600km of fibre infrastructure, including the state’s Metropolitan Area Networks (MANs), proprietary metro networks, a unique dark fibre backhaul infrastructure, as well as one of the largest licensed wireless networks.
Group chief executive Peter McCarthy said: “By implementing critical fibre networks to provide high bandwidth telecommunications connectivity to our wholesale customers, we are supporting thousands of businesses and consumers across the country with the network capacity they need to grow and prosper.
”The latest investment comes on the heels of Enet’s announcement earlier in the year of its partnership with EXA Infrastructure to deliver international optical network connections between Dublin and data centres in Europe and across the North Atlantic."
The partnership covers more than 40 priority data centres in Frankfurt, London, Amsterdam, Paris, Marseilles and Milan as well as a variety of North American routes on the EXA Infrastructure network, now the largest dedicated digital infrastructure platform connecting the two continents.
This service also facilitates the delivery of large volumes of data for data centre workloads, including video content and the continual rise in the use of cloud-based applications.
Speed Fibre Group is owned by the Irish Infrastructure Fund, which manages capital for institutional investors, most of which are Irish pension funds, trusts, and investment managers.
To date, the IIF controls over €500m of investments across energy, telecoms, tourism and healthcare in Ireland.
IIF is operated by London investment company AMP Capital Investors.
In its 2021 accounts, AMP posted turnover of £112m, an increase of 23% on the previous year. Net profit was £30m.