Telecommunications in Ireland operate in a regulated competitive market that provides customers with a wide array of advanced digital services. This article explores Ireland's telecommunications infrastructure including: fixed and mobile networks, The voice, data and Internet services, cable television, developments in next-generation networks and broadcast networks for radio and television.
Regulation
Telecommunications, including radio frequency spectrum licensing and the postal sector, are regulated by the Commission for Communications Regulation (ComReg). ComReg was established on 1 December 2002. The Broadcasting Authority of Ireland (BAI) (Irish: Údarás Craolacháin na hÉireann) is the regulator of both public and commercial broadcasting sector in Ireland. It was established on 1 October 2009, replacing the Broadcasting Commission of Ireland (BCI) (Irish: Coimisiún Craolacháin na hÉireann). The Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment has overall responsibility for national policy and regulation of both telecommunications and broadcasting. The telecommunications market in Ireland was opened to competition in 1998. Eir's dominance has reduced and by Q3 2019 operators other than eir accounted for 61% of the Irish fixed voice market retail revenue and 54.7% market share by fixed-line retail and wholesale revenue and 80.9% of the mobile market (excluding mobile broadband and machine-to-machine subscriptions) or 84.4% of total subscriptions. Other operators accounted for 68.6% of retail fixed broadband subscriptions (comprising cable, FTTH, FTTC/VDSL and ADSL) and 57.3% of retail FTTP subscriptions Eir remains the largest telecommunications company in Ireland, offering fixed, mobile, and broadband services. As Bord Telecom Éireann, the company was state owned until 1999, when it was floated on the Irish and New York Stock Exchanges.
Infrastructure Ireland's telecommunications network is a modern digital system connected by an extensive national fibre optic network with multiple high-capacity fibre optic links to the UK, Continental Europe, North America and with dedicated capacity on routes to Asia and other parts of the globe. There is an open and competitive telecommunications market regulated by ComReg. However, the fixed-line market is still dominated by the incumbent operator Eir. Several companies operate national fibre optic networks including Eir, BT Ireland, ESB Group and Virgin Media Ireland. Eir's fibre network is the most extensive covering most parts of the country with 12,000 km of fibre routes (>40,000 km of fibres) Eir's Next Generation Network upgrade rolled out dense wavelength-division multiplexing (DWDM) which is capable of delivering up to 320 Gbit/s along a single fibre route. This upgrade also sees Eir's core infrastructure moving to an all-IP network. It has major aggregation nodes at 140 locations around Ireland and onward fibre connections to another 470 central office sites. Ireland also has major connections to multiple international fibre optic networks. 94 Irish towns and cities also have access to publicly owned, carrier-neutral metropolitan fibre networks managed by Enet. These networks can be used by any licensed Irish telecommunications operator to provide commercial or residential end users with products. For residential and small business providers, most major urban areas have access to Virgin Media Ireland's HFC network which provides speeds of up to 1 Gbit/s using EuroDOCSIS 3.1 cable modem technology. Open Eir is also in the process of rolling out FTTH which provides speeds of up to 1 Gbit/s down and 100 Mbit/s up. They also provide an extensive vectored VDSL2 based FTTC access network, using the legacy copper network. This offers speeds of up to 100 Mbit/s down and 20 Mbit/s up. Retail services using this next-generation access infrastructure are provided by approximately 15 operators. SIRO, a joint venture between ESB Group and Vodafone Ireland, provides another open access fibre to home network, used by multiple ISPs to deliver service. Fibre is run alongside ESB Networks 230 V/400 V LV electricity distribution system, sharing underground ducts and poles, with fibre typically entering premises next to the electricity meter. This, similar to Eir's FTTH network, delivers speeds of up to 1 Gbit/s and is capable of delivery of 10 Gbit/s in the future. Ireland has three mobile networks that own and operate their own network infrastructure and a number of MVNO operators that operate mobile phone services using one of these infrastructure providers' radio networks. The three infrastructure owning networks are Eir Mobile, Three, and Vodafone. Meteor and Eir Mobile were the first to launch 4G LTE services in Ireland on 26 September 2013, followed by Vodafone on 14 October 2013, and Three on 27 January 2014. O2 was due to launch its 4G services later in 2014, but plans were put on hold when its acquisition by Three was approved in May, and from the time of the merger in 2015, previous O2 customers gained 4G coverage through Three's network, albeit with initial service problems. In 2016, 41.9% of Ireland's mobile subscriptions were using 4G technology. 3G remained the dominant technology with 44.6% share, however, it is likely to be overtaken by 4G in 2017.
Telephone system
Fixed telephone lines in use 1,168,591 (Q3 2020, ComReg) Mobile cellular telephones: 5,182,682 (Q3 2020, ComReg) Country code: 353 As mobile phone services become more price competitive, more Irish customers are opting to drop landline services. This is reflected by a sharp fall in the number of fixed line channels in use and an equivalent increase in mobile subscriptions. Details are tracked on ComReg's ComStat website There are three mobile telecommunications providers: Three Ireland, Eir Mobile and Vodafone Ireland. There are also some MNVOs (Mobile Network Virtual Operators), such as: 48, GoMo, Lycamobile, An Post Mobile, Tesco Mobile, Virgin Mobile and Clear Mobile.
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