Eircom is to offer fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) speeds of 150Mbps, 300Mbps and 1Gbps in the first 16 out of 66 planned towns around Ireland by the end of August.

The incumbent telecoms operator in Ireland today published reference offers for other telcos who wish to sell products based on these speeds from the end of August.

Eircom has already surpassed 1.1m homes and businesses with its fibre-to-the-cabinet (FTTC) broadband network, which will grow to 1.6m homes by next year.

In October, Eircom revealed its new 1Gbps FTTH service will connect to 66 towns across Ireland and will be available at speeds of up to 1,000Mbps.

The 66-town network will compete with a rival plan by ESB and Vodafone to connect fibre to 500,000 premises in 50 towns in the first phase of a €450m plan greenlighted by the EU.

Work commenced in November on the new Eircom locations – Cavan town, Kilkenny City and Letterkenny. In Dublin, the areas of Malahide, Portmarnock and Swords will be among the first in the region to get Eircom’s new FTTH service. The construction phase for each location is expected to take about six months.

Building critical mass

Speaking with Siliconrepublic.com this afternoon, Eircom’s chief executive Richard Moat said the new 1Gbps FTTH services will launch on a wholesale and retail basis at the end of August.

“We are building the FTTH services in 16 towns at the moment and we’ve already run a trial in Belcarra in Mayo, delivering 1Gbps to 50 premises and local businesses have told us that the effect of high-speed fibre has been transformative for them.”

While Moat said he couldn’t reveal the pricing for the new FTTH services, he said they would be sold at a premium price.

“The plan is to have a good critical mass to start with.”

Moat said Eircom is intent on capitalising on its position as the only operator currently offering quad-play services of TV, phone, mobile and broadband but that he is anticipating other operators will attempt to muscle in on this space.

“We compete against these players competitively in the triple play category and our TV offering is half the price of other pay TV offerings.”

Moat said that having passed 1.1m homes with FTTC he anticipates the next phases of a further 100,000 homes and 250,000 homes will follow rapidly in the course of the coming year.

“It’s going to be transformative,” he promised.