SIRO plans to upgrade broadband access for businesses in 600 business and retail parks across Ireland, targeting sites where many firms still rely on copper-based connections. SIRO, founded in 2015 as a joint venture between semi-state utility ESB and Vodafone, has invested €1 billion in Ireland's broadband infrastructure to date.

The rollout places business parks at the centre of SIRO's enterprise strategy as it expands full-fibre services to thousands of premises. Recent projects include completed network rollouts in Sandyford Business District in Dublin and Greenogue Business Park in Rathcoole, with work under way in several other parks. Figures cited by SIRO from ComReg, the state's communications regulator, show that 86% of premises nationally can access fibre-to-the-premises broadband, but only 13% of businesses actually use it.

Alongside the network push, SIRO has introduced an online search tool covering more than 600 business and retail parks, designed to help businesses, IT consultants, property managers, landlords and estate agents check network availability at a specific park, which the operator describes as the first of its kind from a broadband operator in the Irish market. Its current business products offer speeds of up to 10 gigabit symmetrical fibre broadband, with the network designed to support up to 25 gigabits as demand rises.

Aoife O'Reilly, Head of Enterprise at SIRO, said: "Take a small business with 20 employees: even 10 minutes per day of slow broadband for each employee amounts to 16 hours of lost productivity each week, or 100 days over a full year." Sean McCarthy, Greenogue Business Park Manager, added: "High-quality, fast, reliable and future-ready connectivity is now an essential business resource, making access to SIRO's fibre-to-the-premises broadband network a welcome addition to the on-site services available for businesses within the park."

The structural driver is the gap between fibre availability and business take-up, which SIRO argues stems from shared-estate infrastructure decisions that individual tenants cannot make alone, rather than a simple lack of network coverage.

For the sector, this reflects growing recognition among Irish infrastructure operators that household coverage statistics understate the connectivity gap facing commercial tenants, shifting broadband strategy toward targeted enterprise migration rather than blanket rollout.

Source: telconews.ie / irishtimes.com / siliconrepublic.com