SIRO targets 600 Irish business parks with fibre rollout

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.

The rollout places business parks at the centre of SIRO's enterprise strategy as it expands full-fibre services to thousands of premises. Many of these locations remain outside the main shift to fibre-to-the-premises broadband, despite wider national coverage.

Recent projects include completed network rollouts in Sandyford Business District in Dublin and Greenogue Business Park in Rathcoole. Work is also under way in several other parks.

Data from ComReg highlights the gap between availability and take-up. According to figures cited by SIRO, 86% of premises nationally can access fibre-to-the-premises broadband, but only 13% of businesses use it.

That disconnect has commercial implications for employers that depend on cloud services, digital tools and stable communications links. SIRO argues that weak broadband can affect staff productivity, team collaboration, customer service and the use of systems such as cloud computing and artificial intelligence.

Search tool

Alongside the network push, SIRO has introduced an online search tool covering more than 600 business and retail parks. It is designed to help businesses, IT consultants, property managers, landlords and estate agents check whether SIRO's network is available at a specific park.

SIRO described the tool as the first of its kind from a broadband operator in the Irish market. It is intended to address a lack of awareness among occupiers that fibre access may already be available at their site.

The operator is targeting a broad customer base, from small and medium-sized businesses to larger multinational operations in industrial and commercial estates. Its current business products offer speeds of up to 10 gigabit symmetrical fibre broadband, while the network is designed to support speeds of up to 25 gigabits as demand rises.

Aoife O'Reilly, Head of Enterprise at SIRO, linked the initiative to a longstanding shortfall in connectivity at many business parks.

"Poor broadband connectivity has the potential to significantly impede the productivity and growth of Irish businesses. The impact can be staggering. 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.

"While some businesses have simply been slow to switch off their copper connection and move to fibre, for others access to fibre-to-the-premises broadband has been a problem. Fibre broadband deserts, where fibre networks have yet to reach, have been an issue, particularly within business and retail parks.

"SIRO's focus on building our network to businesses within these parks aims to address this deficiency by ensuring these key centres of economic activity have access to high-quality, future-proof fibre broadband," said O'Reilly.

Business park focus

The emphasis on parks reflects the structure of Ireland's commercial property market, where many manufacturers, distributors, retailers and service businesses operate from shared estates rather than city-centre offices. In those settings, access to modern telecoms infrastructure can depend on whether an entire development has been upgraded, rather than on decisions by an individual tenant.

Greenogue Business Park is one of the sites where SIRO has recently completed a rollout. The park says it hosts more than 450 companies and 7,000 employees, making it one of the larger industrial locations in the country.

Sean McCarthy, Greenogue Business Park Manager, said the addition of fibre access had become an important on-site service for occupiers.

"Greenogue Business Park is Ireland's largest light industrial business park, providing best-in-class facilities to Irish and international companies. With more than 450 companies and 7,000 employees, the park is home to some of Ireland's leading and most successful companies, such as Amazon, Dyson, McCambridge's Fine Food and Zeus Packaging.

"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," said McCarthy.

The latest move also underlines how broadband operators are looking beyond household coverage figures and focusing on whether business users are actually migrating from legacy networks. For SIRO, the next stage of fibre expansion appears to depend not only on further construction, but also on making availability easier to identify for companies already based in Ireland's business parks.