Siro is a joint venture between Ireland’s Electricity Supply Board (ESB) and Vodafone, and consumer and business wholesale customers include BT, Carnsore Broadband, Digiweb, Enet, Skytel and WestNet, as well as Vodafone itself. It is a €450 million project to offer speeds of 1Gbps to 500,000 premises in 50 towns.
“Siro has changed the conversation in Ireland as to what a true fibre network is,” said CEO Sean Atkinson. “We mean 100% fibre to the building (FTTB), so that consumers get proper broadband connectivity that meets their needs for decades to come.”
Siro announced the contract this week at Huawei’s Ultra-Broadband Forum in Hangzhou where Atkinson was a keynote speaker.
The company was set up in May 2015 and began rolling out a 100% fibre network. In towns, it runs fibre through its own ducts.
Siro teamed up with Huawei when the initial technical trials were conducted in Cavan Town in March 2015. Since then, Huawei has become the exclusive provider of active equipment for Siro for its first phase build and its build partner in the town of Athlone.
“With over 100,000 homes passed and very encouraging early take up rates, Siro is meeting the demand of Irish homes and businesses for a new communications network for the 21st century,” said Atkinson.
Ryan Ding, executive director of the board and president of the carrier business group of Huawei, said: “We are working with Siro to design a network that will meet the requirements of local communities and businesses. Research has shown there is a direct link between improved broadband connectivity and improved economic performance, and we look forward to working with Siro on what is a nationally significant broadband rollout.”
