Ireland edges closer to nationwide broadband, says Enet chief

Peter McCarthy, CEO of Enet, says that Enet's delivery of connection points is playing a vital role in supporting Ireland's plan to deliver quality broadband nationwide.

IRELAND will be far closer to nationwide access to quality broadband in 2021, thanks to major progress in laying the groundwork for enhanced connectivity.

One key advance runner for the National Broadband Plan (NBP) is Enet, the Limerick-based manager of Metropolitan Area Networks (MANs) on behalf of the Irish State in more than 90 cities and towns in regional Ireland.

Enet manages up to 190 strategic communication points nationwide as part of a contract with the Government and Vodafone. It manages communications equipment on these strategic sites.

Enet has a very significant contract with National Broadband Ireland (NBI) to manage metropolitan area networks (MANs) nationwide.

By the end of 2020, Enet will have completed its role in around 280 of the targetted 300 broadband connection points (BCPs) throughout the country. Of course, this is just one part of the NBP, with MANs essentially ensuring rural locations enjoy a connectivity boost that will eventually be further enhanced as fibre services eventually filter out from urban to rural centres.

“We will have completed around 280 BCP locations by the end of the year,” said Peter McCarthy, CEO of Enet. “Our job is to get a robust connection to these centres. We're bringing connectivity to these community points, which feed into the NBP's overall plan to bring public WiFi to rural locations, serving hospitals, schools, libraries and people in rural communities.

“In time, of course, all of these radio points will disappear when fibre services spread nationwide. In the meantime, these BCPs will allow the wireless network operators to keep the countryside in touch.” 

 Enet is one strand in what has been very timely progress for Ireland's rollout of broadband services. Communications Minister Eamon Ryan is currently pushing David McCourt's NBI consortium to speed up the connection of up to 540,000 rural homes and businesses to high-end fibre.

Enet is delivering the rollout of BCP locations under contract to NBI, which had owned Enet until 2018. Enet, is just one part of the bigger Irish broadband story, but it does currently work with over 80 different retail service providers to bring high-quality broadband and wireless to more than 1.2 million end users throughout Ireland.

“I am not a party to the national plan to deliver nationwide broadband, but you can see that in Q1 of 2021 the conveyor belt will really start up,” said Peter McCarthy. “The public will see this progress when they see the fibre rollout in Carrigaline, Co Cork, where we also have a co-location facility for the MAN.

“We have upgraded the equipment there, and ensured the ducting, the air con etc are all up to date. A huge amount of preparation work has been done. We have been buying up equipment from all over Europe.

“The logistics have been challenging, but our warehouses are now stuffed. We have all the equipment we need to complete around 280 BCP locations by the end of the year. This is a very exciting time for our staff, who have been working flat out and who are delighted to be part of this project.”

 Enet is a nationwide company, with its core staff operating from its Network Operations Centre (NOC) in Limerick. It currently employs around 126 people full-time, and it took on some part-time staff over the summer in admin and support roles.

Enet currently has ten roles it is trying to fill, but the Irish telecomms market is so busy right now that there is strong competition for skilled and experienced staff.

It is perhaps too easy to write the Covid-19 pandemic into the story of what seems like the current urgency to deliver nationwide broadband. Those within the industry say this urgency has always been there, but every new action requires planning, every new pole mounted requires planning permission.

Peter McCarthy is understandably happy with the role his team at Enet is playing within the National Broadband Plan. Enet is currently managing between 1,800 and 1,900 wireless points around the country.

“When you dial the 999 or 112 emergency services, you are most probably making that call across an Enet network.”

When an end user signs up with any of the main mobile telecomms operators, Enet is behind the platform for most of their services. Enet sits behind more than 80% of nationwide broadband for essential services like schools, Garda stations, hospitals and ambulance services.

“When you dial the 999 or 112 emergency services, you are most probably making that call across an Enet network,” said Peter McCarthy. “We are managing most of the communications to planes flying in and out of Ireland.

“Sometimes people don't realise just how important Enet is to their access to broadband. When you use online services like Google, Amazon or eBay, you are going across our networks. There are around 1.2 million to 1.3 million people in Ireland using our networks.

“Whenever there is an outage, we ensure it is quickly resolved. We have engineers working 24/7 in three locations across the country, with our NOK in Limerick at the core of our service.

“Of course, the Covid pandemic has been challenging. At the end of February, we did a test to make sure we could continue working remotely from March onwards. In simple practical ways, Covid has impacted on how we function.

“Covid has taught how important offices are in terms of meetings. We may not need people to be in the office five days a week, but face-to-face meetings are important. Still, even with conference calls, there is a great atmosphere within our hard-working teams.”

Each part of Enet's business gathers at 8:30am each morning in a huddle for 30 minutes. At present, everyone is on camera. There is a great team spirit in our NOK centre in Limerick, both in the day and night teams.

Pete McCarthy adds: “Our decision to locate in Limerick has really proven itself to be a great choice. In terms of recruiting staff, we get the pick of the crop in the region. We're not really competing directly with the major telcos in Dublin.

“The company is only 16 years old, but I've presented a bunch of awards for 15 years of service, and I'm regularly presenting awards for ten years of service.That's because of the great atmosphere in the company.”