Virgin Media Ireland yesterday announced plans to upgrade its broadband network to full fibre, commencing in early 2022. The company also revealed it has already successfully piloted a fibre upgrade of 500 premises, delivering speeds of up to 10Gbps (Gigabits per second), with the plan now to extend to 1 million premises nationwide. The project is expected to take three years to complete. 

Virgin say this new €200m investment will bolster Virgin Media’s long-term network strategy, providing customers with far greater speeds and choice, fuel future Irish connectivity needs and underpin digital innovation for consumers, businesses, and communities nationwide. Furthermore, Virgin says it will create 500 jobs to support this broadband plan. The €200m fibre investment is backed by Liberty Global, Virgin Media Ireland’s parent company. 

Speaking yesterday, CEO of Virgin Media, Tony Hanway said, "At Virgin Media we’re committed to innovating for our customers and investing in Ireland’s long-term digital future. We’re now accelerating the evolution of our network by building out full fibre to more than one million Irish homes and businesses over the next 3 years."

Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications, Eamon Ryan added, "I welcome the announcement by Virgin Media that it will undertake a full national fibre upgrade, which will see the further delivery of very high speed broadband to homes and businesses. Continued investments by commercial operators such as this bring benefits for consumers. Together with the Government’s investment under the National Broadband Plan, this will place Ireland at the forefront of EU countries in terms of Gigabit connectivity."

Source: www.businessworld.ie