eir to invest EUR 500 million in FTTH across Ireland

eir announced plans to invest EUR 500 million in its FTTH network with the goal of passing an additional 1.4 million premises across Ireland.  The fixed network upgrade programme also aims to push top speeds to 10 Gbps.

“Ireland’s Fibre Network”, the next step in the evolution of eir’s network and the expansion of the telecoms infrastructure of Ireland, will pass 180 towns and cities, including every town in the country with more than 1,000 premises.

The investment will follow the completion in June this year of eir’s FTTH roll-out to 335,000 rural premises, at a cost of €250 million to eir and with no public subsidy. By June this year, eir will have invested more than €600m in fibre broadband, delivering high-speed fibre broadband to more than 80% of the premises in Ireland or 1.9 million homes and businesses across the country.

CEO of eir, Carolan Lennon said: “I am delighted to announce this substantial investment of more than half a billion euro, which is a key step in the evolution of eir’s network, and indeed of the entire telecoms infrastructure in Ireland. This ambitious project will see 180 towns and cities passed, including every town in the country with more than 1,000 premises. We will deliver not just the fastest and most extensive fibre network in Ireland, but also one of the most extensive in the whole world. We are also investing to improve eir’s customer care by bringing these services back in-house and provided by 750 new eir employees at three new regional hubs in Sligo, Cork and Limerick. Ultimately this investment will mean that eir customers will enjoy the fastest broadband speeds and the best mobile network supported by best in class customer care.”

Carolan also said: “eir is by far the largest investor in telecoms in Ireland and over the past five years we have spent €1.5bn on our network. In June we will complete our €250 million rollout of broadband to 335,000 rural premises. While there is still more to be done to deliver high-speed broadband to everyone in rural Ireland, we are proud that our significant investments in rural Ireland to date has helped bring high-speed broadband to more than 90% of the population according to European Commission data, and Ireland is now in the top 25% of EU countries for rural high-speed broadband coverage. Our €1 billion capital investment programme over the next five years will deliver the very best fixed and mobile experience for all our customers across Ireland.”

https://www.eir.ie/pressroom/eir-launches-0.5-billion-fixed-network-investment-programme/

• As of 30-September-2018, eir reported a broadband base of 925,000 customers, growing by 22,000 or 2% year on year, driven by growth in both retail and wholesale divisions. 651,000 customers were using the fibre-based high-speed broadband service, representing an increase of 77,000 customers year on year. 70% of broadband customers are connected to the fibre network, which represents a 36% penetration of fibre premises passed.

  eir’s mobile base stood at 1,046,000 customers, decreasing by 11,000 year on year. The postpay subscriber base increased by 34,000 customers or 6% year on year. Postpay customers represent 52% of the total mobile base, an increase of 3 percentage points year on year.