From left: Niall Tallon, CEO, Imagine; Peter Hendrick, CEO, NBI; and Pat O’Neill, an Imagine customer. Image: Stephen O’Brien
Armenia’s Team Group purchased a majority stake in Imagine last December.
Rural broadband provider Imagine has agreed a network deal with National Broadband Ireland (NBI) in a bid to expand its nationwide reach and fibre network offering.
According to the company, the deal would “significantly” increase Imagine’s fibre broadband offering to existing and new customers via the NBI network. The company said that the majority of its 40,000 customers can avail of higher speeds of 500Mbps and 1Gbps, compared to the previous maximum speeds of 150Mbps on its fixed wireless system.
Moreover, following Imagine’s launch on the NBI network, the company will be able to offer services to the nearly 340,000 premises across the country that have been fibre enabled by NBI.
In December, the Armenian Team Group purchased a majority stake in Imagine, with the new management expressing an intent to “pivot faster to fibre”.
Today (17 February), Niall Tallon, the CEO of Imagine, described the NBI deal as a significant milestone for rural broadband connectivity.
“We have ambitious plans for Imagine and we believe that by leveraging innovative technologies and collaborating with infrastructure partners like NBI we can provide the very best broadband speeds and services to our customers,” Tallon said.
“But this is just the start – there is much more to come from Imagine and we are looking forward to sharing those plans with our customers in the coming months.”
While Peter Hendrick, NBI’s CEO, said that more than 70 providers offer their services through the company’s network, “meaning there is huge choice for anyone connecting to high-speed fibre through NBI”.
“We are delighted that Imagine is joining the growing number of retail service providers offering broadband packages on our network. Our roll-out will ensure that every home, farm and business in Ireland has access to high-speed fibre broadband,” Hendrick said.
“We’ve now passed over 337,440 premises across the country, and all of these will have the same guarantee in terms of access, speed and reliability.”
NBI is responsible for delivering Ireland’s National Broadband Plan. In January, the company announced that more than 320,000 premises across the country could now avail fibre broadband, with more than 110,043 premises already connected to the NBI network.
Don’t miss out on the knowledge you need to succeed. Sign up for the Daily Brief, Silicon Republic’s digest of need-to-know sci-tech news.
