Ireland - Fixed Broadband Market - Statistics and Analyses

Ireland's broadband market has developed strongly in recent years, supported by an improving economic climate which has revived investment among the key players, as well as by government efforts to improve wholesale access. In late 2018 the regulator published three decisions on wholesale access pricing resulting from its Broadband Market Review. Several ISPs, including Vodafone Ireland and Sky Ireland, provide services on a wholesale basis through the network of SIRO.

Separately, the government is investing up to €600 million on its National Broadband Plan, which will provide connections of at least 30Mb/s across the country least 30Mb/s by the end of 2022 and deliver broadband services to about 900,000 premises considered uncommercial by market players. Although the incumbent telco eir withdrew from the tender, leaving the National Broadband Ireland consortium as the sole bidder, it is completing a major government-sponsored 1Gb/s network build reaching some rural 300,000 premises. Together, these several efforts have resulted in a rejuvenated broadband sector where average download speeds are now among the highest in Europe.

This report profiles Ireland's fixed and wireless broadband markets, together with developments in related technologies such as FttP, powerline broadband, wireless and mobile broadband, Wi-Fi and internet via satellite. It also provides subscriber forecasts to 2023.

Key Developments:

Eir commits 500 million in five-year FttP program;
SIRO trials reach 10Gb/s data rates;
VDSL connections grew 8.5% in the year to September 2018;
Vodafone Ireland and SIRO launch the Gigabit Hub Initiative;
Casey Cablevisión acquired by Virgin Media;
Virgin Media Ireland increases broadband speed to 360Mb/s, looks to a 1Gb/s service;
Sky launches 100Mb/s fibre broadband service;
Regulator rules that eir make fibre networks available to altnets;
Report update includes the regulators market data updates to Q3 2018, telcos operating and financial data to September 2018, recent market developments.

Companies mentioned in this report include:

Virgin Media Ireland (formerly UPC Ireland), Casey CableVision, eir, Digiweb.