eircom set to pass 1M premises with fiber network this summer

eircom is moving ahead with its fiber-based broadband initiative, announcing that it should pass 1 million homes and businesses with fiber facilities this summer.

John Shine, head of eircom's network division, told Siliconrepublic that the service provider recently upped its national fiber footprint target from 1.2 million homes and businesses to 1.4 million across Ireland.

"Our ambition by 2016 is to have 1.4 million homes passed with our next-generation access (NGA) and that's going really well," Shine said in an interview with Siliconrepublic.

Shine added that about 15 other service providers are currently using its NGA infrastructure to provide services to their customers.

Leveraging a fiber to the node (FTTN) architecture, which includes a mix of fiber and existing copper, eircom expects to deliver up to 100 Mbps to users by using a combination of VDSL2 and vectoring technologies.

eircom may be making progress with its fiber-based broadband network, but it will face new competition from Vodafone Ireland and Irish electricity utility ESB, which are jointly developing a fiber to the building (FTTB)-based broadband network that will deliver speeds ranging from 200 Mbps to 1 Gbps.

For more:
- Siliconrepublic has this article

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