Irish fixed line incumbent eir has announced the expansion of its ‘Gigabit Fibre’ network rollout to include the upgrade of a further 200,000 homes and businesses across the country. In a press release the operator said that the announcement forms part of its ‘ongoing investment into future-proofing Ireland’s connectivity’ and will bring the total number of homes and businesses due to be passed by its fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) infrastructure to 1.9 million, or 84% of all premises in the country.
According to eir, the decision to expand its Gigabit Fibre rollout was ‘motivated by increasing customer needs, driven by the COVID-19 pandemic’, and Eavann Murphy, Managing Director, open eir Wholesale, was cited as saying: ‘We continuously monitor the connection rates of our fibre network and we have seen connections to our rural network more than double in the last 18 months, signifying the increased requirements for high speed connectivity of homes and businesses in Ireland. The pandemic has transformed our needs and what was sufficient for the average family home before is no longer adequate.’
eir claims to have undertaken a EUR1 billion (USD1.2 billion) capital investment programme to build ‘the very best network for its customers’, while saying that throughout the pandemic its engineering teams have worked consistently to roll out this programme on schedule, bringing gigabit speeds straight to home or businesses.