By Business & Finance 
Telecommunications provider, eircom has launched a nationwide competition to identify the next ‘Fibre to the Home’ rural trial community.
The move follows on from the first successful trial site in Belcarra, Co. Mayo, which has seen business and residents of this rural community enjoy the economic, educational and social benefits of having access to broadband speeds of up to 1Gb/s.
eircom is calling on communities across Ireland to be empowered and ‘FibrePower’ their community by entering the competition. Communities are asked to present a compelling case as to why their locality should win and become the next eircom Wholesale Fibre to the Home trial location. The competition is open to communities with no access to high speed broadband and those that are awaiting the deployment of the National Broadband plan.
Commenting on the competition launch today, Carolan Lennon, managing director of eircom Wholesale said: “We’ve been building our high speed fibre network since 2012. Today 1.2 million homes and businesses can access speeds of up to 100Mb/s. By next year, we will reach 1.6m and then 1.9 million by 2020. We are also evolving the technology deployed so that we can offer speeds of up to 1 Gigabit per second, comparable with the best broadband speeds available. We are doing more and going further than any other commercial operator in Ireland. This competition is part of our preparation to gain insights before we rollout new technology in scale. We want to ensure that deploying a high speed broadband network delivers real benefits to communities. In Belcarra, we saw first-hand how a community can benefit from this type of infrastructure. We believe this competition will highlight the huge demand for high speed broadband and demonstrate that an investment of this size can and will transform lives and businesses in rural communities.”
Supporting the competition and acting as judges are the Small Firms Association (SFA), online digital publication Silicon Republic and the Irish Farming Association (IFA), all of whom welcome the initiative and see how the benefits can transform a community.
A J Noonan, Small Firms Association added: “It is crucial for small business up and down the country to have the necessary infrastructure in place to enable them to grow and develop their businesses. Businesses in rural Ireland that currently have with no access to high speed broadband who are relying on the National Broadband plan have a super chance with this competition to put their town on the map as the next eircom trial site, whereby eircom will build a high speed Fibre to the Home (FTTH) broadband network for the winning community at no cost to the community.”
