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The town of Claremorris, Co Mayo Wikimedia Commons

Claremorris to become the first fibre town in Ireland

The service, which is expected to be completed by August, will provide all local businesses in the area with internet speeds of 250Mb/s (31.25MB/s.

A SMALL TOWN in Mayo will become Ireland’s first fibre town as all businesses become connected to fibre broadband.

Open access network operator enet is currently building the first ‘Fibre to the Business’ (FTTB) network in Claremorris, which will see AirSpeed Telecom offering 250Mb/s (31.25MB/s) broadband to local businesses.

The service is part of a €500,000 investment in broadband infrastructure in the town and will bring fibre directly into every business in the town, ensuring that all businesses are free from bandwidth bottlenecks.

It also replaces the traditional copper networks used for broadband services, which means speeds advertised through the service will be guaranteed rather than the ‘up to’ claims made by service providers over copper networks.

Construction of the new network has commenced and is expected to be completed by August. More than 50 per cent of local businesses have subscribed to the services delivered over the network.

The initiative will be launched later today by An Taoiseach Enda Kenny and the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources Pat Rabbitte.

In a statement, Minister Rabbitte said the development is important for creating jobs and such infrastructure will help improve Ireland’s competitiveness in the global market.

I am pleased to hear that enet is considering the possibility of creating further fibredirect towns among other cities and towns with Metropolitan Area Networks (MANs). This is the kind of infrastructural investment that Ireland needs to foster digital entrepreneurship and increase competitiveness.

enet currently manages an advanced fibre optic network, which allows it to deliver high-speed communications and information services, such as broadband, in 94 towns and cities throughout Ireland.

The company holds the concession to manage, maintain and operate two phases of the country’s MAN programme.

Read: Dublin to become the first fully ‘sensored’ city in the world >

Read: Google’s WiFi-carrying balloon circles the world in under a month >

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