e|net and eircom Wholesale Announce Interconnect Deal

(Issued Thursday June 30th, 2011) e|net and eircom Wholesale announced that national connectivity for the Metropolitan Area Network (MAN) in Birr, Co. Offaly is now available and in service using eircom Wholesale’s Next Generation Ethernet data product over the eircom NGN Core platform.

Commenting on the deal, Conal Henry, e|net CEO, said, "This is a landmark development for Birr and regional Ireland in general. It has been our experience that the outcome for every MAN town largely depends on the availability of backhaul to connect the MAN to the wider, global network. While we have existing relationships with other suppliers, this agreement marks a major breakthrough in providing world class, open-access broadband in Birr and has the potential to be rolled out to other MAN towns nationwide.”

Commenting on the announcement Chris Hutchings, MD eircom Wholesale, said “We are delighted that e|net has chosen NGN Ethernet to provide backhaul connectivity from Birr. They join 14 Operators providing service using the Next Generation Ethernet product over the eircom NGN Core network. To date, we've installed NGN capability in over 600 urban and provincial locations, enabling the provision of ultra high-bandwidth connections of up to 1Gb/s to operators and enterprises in these and surrounding areas.”

The telecoms industry has responded positively to this announcement with Neil Wisdom, Sales Director of Complete Telecom stating, "Complete Telecom has provided high speed connectivity to FÁS in Birr on the back of this initiative, so we recognise it as a step in the right direction. Anything that drives down MAN interconnect costs is obviously welcomed by the operators as well as being well received by end users.”

e|net is Ireland’s largest open-access telecoms network operator and the company responsible for managing the State’s Metropolitan Area Network programme.

eircom Wholesale is the division of eircom responsible for providing open Telecoms access, traffic and infrastructure services to over 60 National and International service providers, using the national reach  of the eircom network with more than 12,000 kilometres of fibre and the world class capacity of its NGN core network.

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Photos issued to photodesks by Fennell Photography sales@fennell-photography.ie

For further information please contact:

Niall Beirne

Head of Marketing, e|net

niall.beirne@e-net.ie

Tel: +353 (0) 1 672 1050

Mob: + 353 (0) 87 612 5426

Paul Bradley

Head of Communications, eircom

paul_bradley@eircom.ie

Tel: +353 1 600 4281

Mob: +353 85 1744 281