Eircom is to be one of the first telcos in the world to deploy vectoring technology on its fibre network, boosting maximum speeds to 100Mbps, the company said this morning.
Eircom CEO Herb Hribar confirmed that Eircom will be making the technology available to other licensed operators on a wholesale basis.
He said that 45pc of the fibre network will achieve 100Mbps speeds with vectoring technology.
The remainder of the network will see their speeds boosted from the maximum of 24Mbps today to 70Mbps.
Vectoring technology has the same effect on fibre-to-the-cabinet (FTTC) deployments as noise cancelling headphones, injecting a signal that cancels out noise and makes lines quieter for stronger broadband signals.
The vectoring system will begin rollout in early 2014 and will be available on all lines on Eircom’s fibre network – 1.2m premises – by 2015.
The technology, supplied by Chinese telecoms technology giant Huawei, has also been deployed in Austria by Telecom Austria subsidiary A1.
Eircom estimates that 70pc of the operator’s Next Generation Access (NGA) network, 42pc of homes in Ireland, will get a minimum 70Mbps or more while 45pc of the network, or 27pc of homes in Ireland, could achieve 100Mbps speeds.
Hribar said the deployment is good news for Ireland and will help with Communications Minister Pat Rabbitte’s plans to move Ireland up the broadband league tables.
“We’re going to be delivering speeds up to 100Mbps where in the past delivering speeds up to 70Mbps – but more importantly we will be increasing the footprint of that capability so that about half of the homes we are passing 1.2m are going to have speeds up to 100Mbps and importantly 70pc are going to have speeds up to 70mbps – this is important because it is a retail product and a wholesale product.
“We will make it available to the other operators who want to avail themselves of our network and they’ll be able to deliver those speeds and capabilities to their customers.”
Hribar said the vectoring deployment is a critical part of the incumbent operator’s €1.5bn investment plan which takes in NGA fibre rollout and 4G rollout and puts the company at the leading edge of technology investment.
“It’s a very different Eircom from what you’ve seen in the past,” Hribar said.
