eircom to Launch IPTV Services from Mid 2012

eircom Announces Over €100M Investment in Phase 1 of Planned Fibre Rollout; Television to Launch in 2012

eircom Group today announced Phase 1 of a plan to significantly upgrade Ireland’s telecommunications infrastructure by rolling out fibre based access technologies delivering superfast broadband to customers. Separately, the company also announced it will launch television services next year.

The company intends to serve 100,000 premises by summer 2012 in Phase 1 of a planned multi-year rollout that envisages fibre based services to one million homes and businesses in Ireland. This will involve an initial investment of over €100 million, upgrading the existing copper access network with fibre to the cabinet (FTTC) and fibre to the home (FTTH) technologies.

These developments build on the company’s plans to restructure its debt and its recent Wholesale Reform announcement. The upgrade will provide Ireland with a range of faster broadband speeds and a platform to allow wholesale customers and ICT providers to introduce exciting new services and applications via the eircom network. Specific speeds will vary according to the technology used. FTTC will support speeds of up to 40Mbps and beyond, while FTTH supports speeds of up to 150Mbps.

eircom to Launch IPTV Services from Mid 2012

Separately, eircom intends to launch a range of entertainment services over fibre including television via a customer’s broadband connection (IPTV), video on demand, catch up TV and social media via TV.

These new services will complement our existing value added services such as eircom MusicHub, to offer customers a complete range of content to the device of their choice in their home.

Commenting on the announcement, Paul Donovan, CEO eircom Group, said “Our investment of over €100 million underlines the company’s commitment to be the nation’s network provider of choice and to support economic growth in Ireland.

“The introduction of television and entertainment services is extremely exciting and underlines how far the company has progressed during the past two years. We are determined to offer quality products and services that are relevant and offer real value to our customers. Today is the next step in that journey. This is good news for the industry, good news for our employees and good news for Ireland.”