Mayo reaping benefit of over 16m investment by telecoms sector

AN Taoiseach Enda Kenny has stated that Mayo is beginning to reap the benefit of over €16 million of investment in the region by the commercial telecoms sector.
At a presentation to Mayo County Council’s economic development and enterprise support strategic policy committee, the Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources outlined the considerable commercial investments currently taking place in Mayo as part of the National Broadband Plan.

Eircom is investing €10 million in making high speed broadband of up to 100mbps available to over 30,000 homes and businesses in 38 towns. Services are already live and available to almost 18,000 homes and businesses in Ballina, Ballinrobe, Castlebar, Claremorris, Westport – almost 18,000 addresses.

In June, services will be launched in Balla, Ballyglass, Ballindine, Bohola, Ballyvary, Charlestown, Foxford, Knock Airport, Knock, Kilkelly, Knockmore, Kiltimagh and Swinford.

In July, services will be launched in Clonbur, Cong, Ferrybridge, Kilmaine, Partree and Shrule.

Eircom’s fibre-to-the-premises trial in Belcarra is providing services to 150 customers.

Both Eircom and the ESB/Vodafone joint venture, SIRO, have announced their intention to provide fibre-to-the-premises to homes and businesses in Castlebar, Westport and Ballina.

Enet, which manages the Metropolitan Area Networks (MANs) on behalf of the Department and the Local Authority, has invested €500k in a new fibre-to-the-business network in Claremorris. Almost 300 businesses are now connected to the network with 97 contracting services.

Enet also announced a €1.5m investment to develop a new MAN in Castlebar, which has already secured connections from two telecoms providers and 9 direct connections.

SEPIL and partners announced they are funding installation of fibre on behalf of State in ducting alongside the Galway-Mayo gas pipeline. The Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources will appoint a company to manage this fibre network in the coming months.

Vodafone is investing €4 milion in network upgrades and 4G rollout in Mayo. Works commenced in early 2015. Currently over 85% of Mayo’s population has access to 3G services from Vodafone. The company states that this will grow to 99.68% by year-end. In parallel, 4G coverage will grow from its current coverage of 70% to almost 95% of the population by end 2015.

“3” is also providing 4G services in Mayo. It will be making these services available to previous O2 customers from June this year.  As the “3” and former O2 networks consolidate over the next two years, “3” will be upgrading all its sites in Mayo to 4G.

The investments in high speed broadband under the National Broadband Plan will result in over 30,000 premises in Mayo having access to high speed broadband over the next year. This represents 40% of the premises in Mayo.

The remaining 60%, comprising almost 51,000 premises, will be the target the State’s intervention under the plan.