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TRALEE and Killarney have been included in a venture to bring a 100 per cent fibre to the building broadband network offering speeds from 200 Mbps to 1000 Mbps.

The ESB and Vodafone have signed the innovative joint venture agreement to invest €450 million in building the network  and that the two Kerry towns, Killarney and Tralee are included in first phase of the roll out.

Following a competitive tender process, Vodafone was selected as ESB’s joint venture partner.

“This is major step in the right direction as Ireland becomes the first country in Europe to use the national overhead and underground electricity infrastructure to deploy fibre directly into homes and businesses allowing 500,000 premises in 50 towns to avail of the service,” said Deputy Arthur Spring, welcoming the announcement on Wednesday.

“Recent data from ComReg, the Irish telecoms regulator, showed that 43% of fixed broadband customers in Ireland receive speeds of less than 10 Mbps. This new joint venture will provide access to 100% fibre broadband of up to one gigabit per second allowing SME’s and remote workers to benefit,” said Deputy Spring.

The joint venture, which is subject to EU Commission approval, will be provide a faster broadband experience to the first customers in 2015 and the first phase of the project is expected to completed by 2018.

Open access is to be offered to all broadband providers on a wholesale basis allowing customers of those companies avail of the high speed broadband service.