Monday will mark the official launch of Siro, a fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) network developed by Vodafone Ireland and electricity provider ESB.
The service will be available initially in Carrigaline, County Cork, in the south of Ireland, according to reports in the Irish press on Monday. Thus the town becomes the first of 51 urban fibre hubs in the country, the Irish Times said.
ESB and Vodafone signed a joint venture agreement in July 2014 to invest €450 million in the rollout of an FTTB network to half a million premises in 50 regional towns in Ireland; the c ompanies added Carrigaline as the 51st town in September.
The network is being rolled out alongside ESB’s existing power distribution infrastructure, both overhead and underground.
The project was given the brand name Siro earlier this year and won European Commission approval a month ago.
Vodafone, which is offering the service as LightSpeed, is touting home broadband packages with a minimum connection speed of 350 Mbps, rising to 1 Gbps. Prices start at €49, the Irish Times said; however, a 1 Gbps plan costs €111 and an unlimited business bundle, including voice, costs €129, the paper said.
