Michael Browne, Technology manager NGA Infrastructure, eircom
As the largest network provider in Ireland, eircom provides mobile telephony, and broadband services. Broadband services to date have been based on ADSL and ADSL2+. It is now currently going through an evolution to fiber to the cabinet and fiber based platform. Vectoring is a very interesting development in VDSL2 technology. It offers much greater speeds and a stable platform; it will allow eircom to offer its customers higher speeds and to support even more applications.
Stephen Carleton, NGA Planning and Design Manager, eircom
In 2010, eircom undertook a pilot that included a fiber to the home trial in Sandyford and Wexford, two of our exchanges one in the Dublin area and one in the south east of the country. At the same time we did a fiber-to-the-cabinet trial in two south Dublin exchanges. As those trials concluded that the chief executive announced the intention to complete a one million home or one million premises NGA rollout, we would currently have passed in excess of 100,000 premises up to around the 100th exchange, which would equate to perhaps 3 to 4 hundred thousand premises passed. People have a reassurance in terms of the eircom brand, but they also have an expectation of what the brand will deliver. So our customers expect us to be technology leaders, at the same time as being able to deliver to all parts of the country, the solution that they require.
Ken Giles, NGA Network Deployment Manager, eircom
Huawei’s contribution to eircom meeting its overall corporate objective of being the telecoms provider of choice in Ireland is critical, our ability to be able to do what we say we do, in terms of bringing the enhanced products and services to the public and to our customers is key to the level of confidence that needs to be built up nationwide in respect to the nature of the program. The deployment of one Huawei cabinet on its own doesn’t require much management. However when you multiply that by over 5000 which is anticipated volumes over the next two years and then you factor-in 126 local authorities with the 25 or 30 ESB authority areas, it then becomes complex.
