Irish operator Eircom says its fiber-optic network now covers ‘almost half the country’ with the announcement that it has reached the important milestone of passing the one millionth premises with ultra-high speed broadband. In its press release yesterday, Eircom said the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, Alex White, was in attendance at an event in Cahersiveen, Co Kerry – at the location of the one millionth home – to mark the event.

The operator says its fibre network rollout continues apace, and is close to reaching 50% of homes and businesses across the Republic with superfast fibre broadband with speeds of up to 100Mbps. Further, it claims its rollout is being carried out at ‘a faster pace than its peers in Germany, the UK and the United States’. In Kerry, 25,000 homes and businesses can already enjoy the benefits of fibre in Killarney, Ballyspillane, Muckross, Tralee, Killerisk, Castleisland, Killorglin and from today Cahersiveen, it said. Eircom is looking to reach 1.6 million homes and businesses covered by fibre by the end of 2016. Once completed, fibre broadband will be available to every town in Ireland with a population of 900 residents or more, making significant progress in the provision of superfast broadband across Ireland. To realise the objective, Eircom has committed to a capital expenditure programme which commenced two years ago. It is is now more than half way through its EUR1.5 billion (USD1.94 billion) investment programme, which includes EUR400 million for fibre broadband rollout.