Eircom to roll out super-fast 4G in €330m plan

Eircom has won the race to be the first mobile operator to launch a 4G mobile service in Ireland.

This means consumers will be able to stream or download videos faster and upload content to social media almost instantly.

As part of a €330m investment over five years, the 4G service will be available from Meteor and eMobile as part of bundled and standalone packages and will offer mobile data up to 10 times faster than what is available on 3G.

Eircom has said users can peak speeds will reach between 20Mbps and 25Mbps, and in technical trials the operator has clocked speeds of more than 60Mbps.

The 4G service is live in Dublin, Carlow, and Athlone providing a service to 1.2m people — about 30% of the population. In the coming weeks, rollout will continue to Cork, Limerick, and Galway. Eircom said that by the end of December, roughly 43% of the population will have access to a 4G service.

The move comes 11 months after ComReg held an auction for the 4G spectrum.

Eircom group CEO Herb Hribar said customers would have a “significantly improved mobile broadband experience” and that the development reflected the company’s efforts to provide value and quality of service.

There will be no price premium charged for 4G services provided by Meteor and eMobile and to encourage customers to see just how fast the service is, 4G users will have access to free unlimited 4G data until March 2014.

Meanwhile, Vodafone has confirmed it will launch a 4G mobile service in six cities and a further 26 towns by mid-October

The 26 towns in the South-East and South-West are Carlow, Tralee, Wexford, Cobh, Midleton, Ballincollig, Mallow, Killarney, Enniscorthy, Dungarvan, New Ross, Carrigtohill, Macroom, Mitchelstown, Bantry, Blarney, Kanturk, Bagnelstown, Thomastown, Kenmare, Bunclody, Newmarket, Dunmanway, Lismore, and Rosslare Harbour.