enet has announced substantial investment in the continued development of a world class fibre network connecting and further integrating the Metropolitan Area Networks (MANs) into a national telecommunications platform. The deployment of interurban connectivity of this nature is often referred to as “backhaul” in telecoms markets.
The backhaul project is the latest investment undertaken by enet and its parent, Granahan McCourt Capital, bringing total investment to over €100 million since the specialist Technology, Media and Telecommunications (TMT) investment firm acquired the open-access network operator in late 2013. Granahan McCourt Capital’s founder and CEO, David C. McCourt, has throughout his 30-year career shown a long heritage of improving connectivity and pioneering the roll-out of telecom networks of substantial scale all over the world. The continued investment is expanding enet’s geographical reach and operations that complement the MANs which it already manages on behalf of the Irish State.
The national backhaul network, which is now live and fully operational, includes over 3700 km of high-capacity-fibre-count cabling and connects 55 towns such as Ballina, Roscommon, Tralee and Kilkenny. This announcement marks a major breakthrough in providing a top class, open access broadband network throughout the country. It also means that enet will be in the position to offer MAN customers access to higher speeds as well as greater network reliability.
Conal Henry, CEO of enet commented: “This development is hugely significant for enet, our customers and regional Ireland in general, demonstrating the ambition of our shareholders to grow this business and invest in Ireland’s connectivity. The investment in a national backhaul network gives us access to dark fibre for the vast majority of our traffic sources and offers us a far greater flexibility of how we design and deliver our services to the benefit of our 70 operator customers and their end-users.”
Henry concluded by saying, “The deployment establishes the enet network infrastructure as the most comprehensive competitive fibre network in Ireland.”