* 20 New Metro locations to be built in Ireland in 2006
* Offering download speeds starting at 3Mbps and upload speeds of 512kbps
* Follows success of Metro’s pilot in Dublin, Cork, Waterford, Limerick, Galway and Dundalk
* €8.5m euro investment in Broadband in Ireland by Digiweb to make Metro Broadband available to over 60% of the entire population in 2006
Digiweb Ltd has today announced an €8.5m investment in Broadband in Ireland with the announcement of the “Metro-20” project.
Metro-20 will greatly extend the reach of Digiweb’s next generation wireless Metro network. It will add new Metro Locations to the network and also add extra reach to Dublin and some of the existing locations.
Metro offers a very high speed broadband service along with a phone service to home and business users. Metro uses the very same technology used by cable operators to deliver ultra high-speed services to end users however it adds the benefits and speeds of the most advanced wireless technology available to bring the services to the end users. Each Metro site is capable of covering an area equivalent to at least 80 square kilometres.
Digiweb have also concluded the first round of evaluations for the rollout of Wideband Data services using their national 900Mhz license recently awarded by Comreg. Wideband data services will offer broadband equivalent speeds with Voice over IP and the benefit of true mobility with cell sizes of up to 70KM.
Digiweb have always believed that the only way to promote broadband take up in Ireland is by investing in true platform competition. Both the Metro project and the Wideband data services project underpin this commitment.
Commenting on this announcement, John Quinn, Head of Strategic Development at Digiweb said “Digiweb are committed to building true platform competition in Ireland . This investment shows Digiweb’s commitment to building one of the largest network’s in Ireland , with the greatest reach. The Pilot launch of Metro in the 6 main cities has been a massive success for Digiweb and allows us to now expand our network to cover vast areas of Ireland . Once Metro-20 is completed and our wideband network rollout begins, it will also give us a critical mass of coverage and we will utilise this to launch new products and services that our competitors are going to find very difficult to match, in any respect for either voice or data services.