eircom, Ireland's incumbent telco, has officially launched its new open access fiber-based broadband network, enabling speeds of up to 70 Mbps for, initially, more than 300,000 premises.
By the end of this year, the telco says its network footprint will include more than 600,000 premises and 1.2 million, or about 60 percent, of homes and businesses in Ireland by 2015.
The telco's FTTx network will leverage a mix of fiber to the cabinet (FTTC) with a hybrid fiber/copper VDSL2 connection and fiber to the premises (FTTP).
Herb Hribar, CEO of eircom said it "will continue to actively review its plans to expand the network beyond 1.2 million premises as far and as wide as commercially possible."
Over the FTTx network, eircom will offer consumers its set of eFibre products and bundles initially priced at €40 ($51) (promotional price for 6 months) for consumers and €24.79 ($32) for businesses. Besides data services, the telco is also trialing a new IPTV service, but has not given any firm date when it would be available.
In addition to selling to consumers and businesses directly, the last mile network will be open to other competitors that want to deliver services in its FTTx footprint.