Free Zone hails arrival of high-speed broadband

SHANNON Development have welcomed a new broadband initiative at the Free Zone, which they claim will help strengthen its case when seeking to attract foreign direct investment.
A new dark fibre optic cable will give businesses operating in the Zone and the Smithstown Business Parks an opportunity to avail of enhanced high-speed broadband services improving the region’s national and international connectivity.
The new service is being provided by Aurora Telecom, a division of Bord Gais networks. Shannon Development worked with them to extend their planned Ennis to Cork fibre project to include the areas. They also facilitated Aurora with a site at Shannon for the point of presence (POP point of presence, it telecom switch).
Doctor Vincent Cunnane, chief executive of Shannon Development said that the new service will offer industries in the Free Zone and Smithstown virtually unlimited resilient bandwidth well into the future, a key selling point for potential foreign direct investors. “As Aurora’s network is fibre-based, it ensures a network that is future-proofed and therefore it is highly attractive to industries that need high bandwidth-resilient services such as data and financial service centres. It will complement and enhance the existing broadband services and provide industries with additional high-end routing options into and out of the zone and Smithstown.”
Speaking about the work involved, Sean O’Donnell, general manager of Aurora Telecom said, “We were more than happy to facilitate Shannon Development within the Ennis to Cork fraction of our overall Dublin to Cork fibre project. The work involves installing fibre optic cable into 140km of existing roadside ducting. It will complete the Dublin to Cork project, which is designed to facilitate the development of a high-speed communications network in urban centres located along the route in support of the Government’s plan to roll out first-class broadband services across the country.”
Work has already begun on the project, which involves running almost 11km of dark fibre optic cable around Shannon. The project is expected to take three months to complete and will benefit Government agencies, large corporate organisations and financial services. The open access nature of the network will also introduce additional telecom operators into the market, which should also benefit smaller businesses by introducing greater competition.
“Once finished, this will provide Shannon Free Zone businesses with additional backhaul connections to Cork and Dublin via this dark fibre optic cable network and provide improved national and international broadband connectivity at the Free Zone. High capacity and high-speed communications networks are more important now than ever and we have another significant selling point for Shannon Development in our endeavours to attract foreign direct investment to the Shannon Free Zone.”