SIRO Network Resilience amid the COVID-19 Pandemic

There are more than 1.7 million broadband subscriptions in Ireland (Comreg data Q4 2019). Almost half of these– over 873,000 subscriptions - are copper-based broadband, including DSL and VDSL (also known as FTTC). Amid growing fears over the COVID-19 epidemic, concerns have been raised in both the UK and Ireland over whether the current predominantly copper infrastructure is resilient enough to handle a spike in online traffic as an increasing number of people are now working, and schooling, from home. In-home entertainment demands are also expected to rise as schools are closed and social restrictions are put in place. Following calls from the European Commissioner, Netflix on 19 March stated that it will temporarily reduce the quality of videos on its platform to ease pressure on internet service providers for 30 days. [caption id="attachment_5252" align="aligncenter" width="767"] Active Broadband Subscriptions in Ireland Q4 2019 (Comreg)[/caption] More and more Irish consumers are benefiting from 100% fibre broadband, as FTTP broadband represents the fastest growing segment in the market , with annual growth rate of 79%. SIRO was the first and remains the only 100% pure fibre network in Ireland. The SIRO network covers 310,000 homes and business in 21 counties all over Ireland. Fibre technology is recognised as the only gold standard, future-proofed broadband solution (FTTH Council Europe), and fibre-optic cables are far less prone to congestion compared to copper lines. SIRO offers extremely low latency of 10ms on average (while anything below 20ms is considered fantastic), which means remote workers can download large files, video-call and access cloud applications without delay. In addition, the home educators, the avid gamers and the movie streaming enthusiasts can all simultaneously enjoy a seamless online experience. Indeed, we have seen a stable and consistent network performance over the last 2 weeks and no disruption despite increase in data demands.

SIRO Network Resilience

We have observed a slight increase in average data consumption (7% for download) since the social restriction announcement in 12 March.  This increase is well within our network capacity. In our latest statement, SIRO confirmed that "Each 1 Gigabit SIRO service is capable of managing 400 times the average user speeds observed on the network to date so while we do expect to see increases in traffic (like we saw during the snow event in March 2018) the SIRO network is dimensioned to carry many multiples of the current data traffic”. [caption id="attachment_5250" align="aligncenter" width="851"] User Data Consumption on the SIRO Network, 1-24 March 2020[/caption] The graph below shows the average user speed observed on the SIRO network on Tuesday 24 March. There has been a sharper increase than normal in the morning, which is to be expected when the entire family is home.  Among the SIRO towns, Cork, Limerick, Drogheda and Blanchardstown (Dublin) have consistently seen the highest data consumption. [caption id="attachment_5251" align="aligncenter" width="866"] Average User Speed, 24 March 2020[/caption] All in all, the SIRO network is well-equipped to deal with a persistent increase in data demand. We will continue our roll-out and installation activities during this time period, adopting all government COVID-19 guidelines, to ensure many more Irish consumers can get access to our world-class 100% fibre broadband network. In doing this, we hope to play our part in providing the vital social and economic connectedness that Ireland needs to overcome the pandemic and ultimately recover.

Women in Ireland have a strong entrepreneurial spirit: the rate of female early stage entrepreneurs in Ireland was the 5th highest in Europe (2018 GEM Report, Enterprise Ireland). The same report , however, shows women are less likely to believe they have the knowledge and skills to start a successful business than men. In this article, we interview Gillian Reidy, a successful entrepreneur based in Stradbally, Co. Laois, whose ambitions, hard work and innovation have seen her award-winning design business Penhouse going from strength to strength for more than 20 years, snapping up an impressive portfolio of clients including Lily O’Briens, Disney, The GAA, Vodafone, Bord Bia and the HSE, to name a few. Gillian relocated from Dublin to Laois in 1999. It was amid the inspiring seasonal beauty of the countryside that she renovated stone farm buildings and turned them into contemporary graphic design studios. Gillian availed of SIRO 100% fibre broadband in 2016 – one of the first SIRO connections in Co. Laois. In the interview, she discusses the essential role SIRO plays in enabling her decision to live and run a successful business in rural Ireland, which would have been unthinkable before the age of high-speed broadband. 1. Tell us a bit about you and your business. When and how did you decide to start Penhouse?

We are a branding, design and creative communications agency. We focus on various aspects of branding, from new logos and brand stories to product packaging and marketing designs. We work with businesses of different sizes – from small businesses to international companies to government bodies.

I set up the agency in 1996 in Dublin. In the mid 90s I was working with a company that went out of business and I was made redundant. I decided to go out on my own and set up Penhouse then. I got a studio on Dawson street – at that time that was very much the heart of design in Dublin.

I’m originally from Dublin but then I moved to Laois when I met my husband and I was commuting for a while. In the long term that wasn’t a runner as I had to be there first thing in the morning and back home last thing at night. Eventually we decided on our biggest move which was to move out of Dublin to Portlaoise. We got a studio in Portlaois town but again after a few years we outgrew that, and that’s when we moved out here. This became our permanent spot.

When we moved to the countryside, rather than disguising the fact that we were not in town, we embraced the location. We are always taking loads of photographs of the location and which you can see on our website. It's super - it's great being able to do that. The barley fields change seasonally – in the middle of the summer the sky is beautifully blue and you have the sun hitting the grass and it’s so green - in fact that’s how we got the colour of our logo. From a personal perspective, for family life, I'm beside our family home so my husband’s nearby, and our children are around too. It’s not adding commuting time to an extra long day in the office. All the guys working here live nearby as well. I know we’re lucky and I never take it for granted. Certainly here in Laois there’s been a big drive in the last year or two to get people off the commuter train and have more people work locally.

[caption id="attachment_5219" align="alignnone" width="948"] Penhouse design studios in Co. Laois[/caption] 2. What were some of the challenges you faced as an entrepreneur? The main thing for me when I started was missing the company of other, as I was working alone, you do everything yourself. Then when I was commuting I was there first thing and I was the last to leave so my days were crazy long. That has all now changed but as the business evolves new challenges always come up. Even now the part I find the most stressful about the business is when we’re quiet more so than when we’re busy. Sometimes looking for staff can be difficult with our location - not everyone wants to work in the countryside and live in the countryside. It absolutely fits people who do but not everyone in Ireland wants to do it. Luckily I have not come across too many difficulties or challenges that we weren’t able to get over at some point. And it could be a challenge one year and you wouldn’t see that challenge again for another 4-5 years – business evolves all the time. 3. You relocated to Ratheniska, Stradbally, Co Laois in 1999 – what was the broadband like back then? When we first moved out here, we were in the ISDN line territory. It was always a worry whenever there was a storm or it got foggy. You could see the fog coming in from the mid-lands. With SIRO, we don’t have to worry about that side of things anymore. We are about 5km from Port Laois, 2.5km from Stradbally. We’re just beyond the exchange route, outside where the main lines go. We were too far from both of them to get the standard broadband, also we were down in a hollow. We had to go for satellite broadband and that was the best option for us, it’s nothing like SIRO but it was our best bet. But with the wind – if you got heavy wind, the dish would move and the internet could go! 4. When did you sign up to SIRO? What has been your experience with high-speed broadband? We got SIRO around 4 years ago – we were one of the first test sites. It’s so weird how quickly now you get used to high-speed broadband. Years ago, you could tell people (that you have slow broadband) and people would accept it – I don’t know if it would be as acceptable now. Our business is very deadline driven. If we don’t have any internet, we’d run into difficulties accessing files and delivering / sharing files and so on. If our internet ever went down, we’d have to get up and drive into town and get to a café or bar to use their wifi. All the design files we use are really heavy. We’d be sharing and moving them digitally over Wetransfer and Dropbox – it’s a regular thing for us to upload and download big files. Every so often we have the ESB maintenance days where they’re updating the lines and we’d have no electricity, no internet nothing – you’d really realise how much you rely on it. Broadband to me is a basic necessity of our business – nearly more important than electricity – We can’t do our job without it. It is a luxury to be able to live and run my business in Co. Laois. I’d never take it for granted. 5. According to an Enterprise Ireland report, many women in Ireland believe they do not have the knowledge and skills to start a business. Fear of failure is also greater among women than among men. What is your advice for women entrepreneurs out there? The word entrepreneur never sits comfortably with me (laugh). I’m not naturally comfortable when people say ‘you’re an entrepreneurial woman in business’, but on the other side I do appreciate the importance of younger people seeing women as business owners and that image probably helps them with their confidence to follow a similar route if they are thinking about doing it. I never really set out to do it on my own, but I supposed I always like doing stuff my way. Having that sort of personality probably meant I was always going to go down this route. When I started out I was working for myself, not really thinking beyond that, but I started employing people and the business just sort of evolved. It happened organically more so than me setting out to be an 'entrepreneur' so I suppose that's why I tend to be slow to use that language (laugh). I would say that you don’t need any particularly different knowledge or skill to be an entrepreneur. It's more about your attitude. You just need to believe in what you’re doing and have a desire to do it, with no fear. Other than that you just learn as you go along. If you have areas you’re not strong in you can bring people in to help you with those. As long as you’re prepared to work hard and you’re happy doing it, and you like what you do. People say if you have your own business you can put in your own hours and work when you want – I don’t know anyone who has their own business who thinks that way. Even if I’m out of the country I’m looking at designs I can’t help it. I’m always 'on' and it’s kinda in you. I think women can sometimes have more self-doubt than men. We are less likely to take something on if we think we don’t fully know how to do it. We don’t jump in as quickly. I don’t like chancing my arm if I’m really not comfortable in that space. I’d be very straight up with people and say look that’s not something we’ve ever done before. Women are more careful and guarded. But I don’t want to limit ourselves in what we do, so I do also take informed chances – it’s about finding that balance. When I set up Penhouse, I didn’t think anything beyond doing it myself. Years later when people said to me ‘wow you set up your own business – there aren’t many women who would have done that at the time’ – for me I didn’t think twice about it, still don’t really think twice about it. It’s people’s perception more so that they thought it was unusual or brave. In the 90s a lot of people left Ireland for the UK or the States or different parts of Europe, it wasn’t an exciting place for business for sure. More people I knew left rather than set up and do their own thing. Of course, I’m a woman in business, but I don’t think of myself as a woman in business, I think of myself as a person in business. Gillian Reidy lives in Co. Laois with her husband Colm and their children Amy and Noah. She and her team at Penhouse continue to be freshly inspired everyday by the changing colours of the barley fields. SIRO 100% fibre broadband is available to 310,000 homes and businesses in 21 counties. Search your address to find out if you can connect to Ireland’s most powerful broadband.  

Blacknight has become the latest company to offer Gigabit Fibre Broadband services powered by SIRO, with the company targeting businesses in Carlow, Kilkenny and Wexford initially, before expanding to more towns over the next twelve months. With nearly 100,000 customers across the globe, Blacknight is known as a market leader in the provision of hosting and co-location services ranging from small single web site hosting to complex backup, connectivity, colocation and security solutions. The ability to add Gigabit Fibre Broadband to its range of services will strengthen its offers to SME and Enterprise customers. Blacknight will be able to leverage SIRO’s €450 million Gigabit broadband network, which is 100% Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) and has no copper connections at any point to slow the service down, to offer the most powerful broadband services in Ireland to businesses in the three towns. The SIRO network offers businesses and enterprise the best available network in terms of speed, reliability and security. No other connection can compare with 100% fibre, which supports symmetric speeds of 1 Gigabit, 50 times the upload speeds of traditional copper networks. Welcoming the new retail partnership, SIRO Chief Commercial Officer Ronan Whelan said: “The quality of SIRO’s Gigabit connectivity is underlined by Blacknight coming on board as our 16^th retail partner. Built on the ESB network, SIRO offers businesses and enterprise best-in-class connectivity with symmetric speeds, allowing them to transfer files and videoconference in high definition across the world on a network that is secure and futureproofed.” Blacknight Paul Kelly, Chief Technical Officer added: “Adding Gigabit Fibre Broadband to the range of products we offer to our customers means that we can offer a one stop shop for businesses online needs. Our success has been built on a combination of leading-edge technology and superior customer service. Adding a product such as SIRO’s 100% fibre-optic broadband fits perfectly with our brand, and enables us to provide a high quality service that our customers expect from us. We are looking forward to growing our partnership with SIRO, with both companies’ future success going hand-in-hand.” SIRO is offered on an open-access basis to all telecoms retailers in Ireland, with a network scale of over 300,000 homes and businesses across Ireland. SIRO will continue investment to support expanding it’s network footprint.

John Keaney, CEO of SIRO, has been appointed as Chair of Telecommunications Industry Ireland (TII), the Ibec representative body for the electronic communications industry in Ireland. As part of this role, Keaney will focus on the priorities TII has set out for political parties as part of the General Election 2020 campaign. Central to these priorities is the need for a dedicated Minister for Communications and Digital to lead Ireland’s digital agenda with the industry body setting out a number of key priorities such as combatting the growing opposition to the rollout of 5G, greater rural mobile connectivity, increasing cybersecurity and combatting digital piracy. One of TII’s key concerns is the growing opposition to the rollout of 5G which risks damaging job creation and undermining the ambition for Ireland to be a digital leader. The industry body has called on Government to issue a Ministerial letter to all councils setting out the benefits of 5G, clarifying the safety standards and the role of councils in rolling out this service. TII would welcome the establishment of an expert scientific panel under the aegis of the Environmental Protection Agency to monitor the relevant scientific safety standards in relation to the 5G rollout in order to dispel the false claims being made about health risks.

Mobile Connectivity Investment in Rural Ireland

TII is also calling for more investment in rural mobile connectivity, highlighting that the telecoms sector has paid €932 million for spectrum licences since 2012 and generates substantial VAT and other tax revenues for the Exchequer. The industry body recommends that spectrum fees and receipts from spectrum auctions transferred to the Exchequer should be allocated for investment in initiatives to improve mobile coverage in rural areas. Cybersecurity and digital piracy threats are also major concerns. TII has called on Government to allocate adequate resources to the National Cybersecurity Centre to meet the growing cyber threat. The industry body also recommends establishing a taskforce involving the Revenue Commissioners, An Garda Síochána and the relevant Government Departments to combat digital piracy. As a major employer and investor in the Irish economy, with over 25,000 working in the sector and a combined investment of approximately €3Bn over the past five years by industry players, TII believes that Ireland’s digital future is at a crucial junction with a need for Government to play a key role to ensure the right conditions are present to deliver long term success.

Connectitivy is the Bedrock of the Irish Economy

Commenting on TII’s ask of the next Government, Keaney said: “Connectivity is the bedrock of the economy. Where we had railroads and canals in the past, business today is underpinned by data and is entirely dependent on our telecoms infrastructure. We should not be complacent as we are seeing increased opposition to the rollout of 5G, which is founded on baseless claims and the next Government will have a clear role in making sure the public clearly understand the benefits of the technology. There are a variety of other challenges facing the next administration such as cybersecurity, digital piracy and ultimately, we believe that the next Taoiseach needs to put a dedicated Digital Minister in place given the importance of the sector to the country.” Keaney succeeds Shay Walsh, Managing Director of BT Ireland, who served as Chair of TII in 2019. John Keaney has been CEO of SIRO, the joint venture of ESB and Vodafone which is investing €450 million in building Ireland’s first 100% Fibre-to-the-Building broadband network, since 2018. Prior to this, Keaney served as Financial Director at SIRO since 2014. He joined SIRO following a ten-year period with Vodafone where he served in a variety of roles including Head of Financial Operations and Financial Controller. Prior to joining Vodafone in 2004, Keaney was a senior manager with Deloitte. He is a qualified accountant and holds an Economics degree from the London School of Economics and Political Science.

SIRO, the wholesale broadband operator building Ireland’s only 100% fibre optic network, has announced a new partnership with Cork Internet eXchange (CIX), which will enable the Cork company to resell services powered by SIRO to fixed broadband retailers. 30,000 homes already receive broadband services from CIX customers, and this new partnership ensures that their clients will be able to access to SIRO’s Fibre-to-the-Building (FTTB) technology, which is recognised as the gold standard for broadband connectivity internationally. CIX is a data centre which provides a fully-resilient network that delivers lightning-speed Internet connectivity to more than 100 Cork companies. The company recently doubled the size of its operations following a €6 million investment to construct a new data centre. The expansion and new partnership with SIRO forms part of Cork Internet eXchange’s strategy to ensure that the Munster region continues to be highly attractive as a location for investment by multinationals. Using the existing ESB network, SIRO delivers fibre optic cables all the way to the building, enabling the wholesale broadband operator to deliver a 100% fibre-optic internet connection, making it better and more reliable than any other broadband infrastructure in Ireland. Providing symmetrical speeds of 1G, the SIRO network supports upload speeds that are over 50 times faster than traditional copper networks. For business and enterprise customers in Cork, having access to a high speed always –on connection, allowing them to transfer large data files and videoconference in high definition with anyone anywhere anytime, is transformative. SIRO is offered on an open-access basis to all telecoms retailers in Ireland and its network now has 15 retailers offering connections to over 275 thousand homes and businesses across Ireland, driving competition in the retail market. Commenting on the new partnership, Jerry McSweeney, CEO of CIX, said: “This is another example of our sustained investment to ensure that Cork Internet eXchange is in a position to provide our customers with the best connectivity in the region. Having doubled in size over the past ten years and quintupling our data capacity, giving access to SIRO’s Gigabit broadband to our clients adds another string to our bow and underlines Cork’s position as the broadband capital of Ireland.” Alex French of SIRO, added: “SIRO is already powering a digital transformation in Cork as we forge ahead with a €70 million investment in the County. Cork and the wider Munster region is a key focus for our rollout given the wealth of multinationals and Irish firms expanding abroad who all depend on connectivity to power their businesses. This partnership with CIX is a crucial element of our strategy given the firm’s reputation and customer base; ultimately laying the foundation for us to add multiple broadband retailers and foster competition in the region.”

As game developers, content creators and gamers from across the globe anticipate the arrival of the new gaming platform Google STADIA, SIRO’s Chief Technology Officer, Suzanne Tracy, provides insight into the evolving Video Games Industry and SIRO’s role in supporting the games development sector in Ireland. It’s an exciting time for the Games industry. According to NewZoo insights over 2bn people play video games worldwide and 2m of those are in Ireland. Gaming is evolving towards a predominantly online platform and new trends such as e-sports and Twitch streaming have shifted how developers design their games. Today, Google launches STADIA, a cloud-based streaming platform that has been dubbed as the “future of online gaming”.  For the uninitiated, Google STADIA essentially allows its players to stream their game from any device using Google’s data centres, hardware and cloud technology rather than download game files. There has been much discourse over the network capabilities required for the best gameplay possible. Google say that the speed required for STADIA is 35 Mega Bits Per Second (mbps) however other performance factors such as latency (or “ping”) which measures the response time (in milliseconds) for an internet connection, is the determining factor for a completely seamless experience.  In a recent survey conducted by UK Broadband provider, CityFibre, more than four fifths (85%) thought that their gaming performance would improve if they had access to a 100 per cent fibre, ultra-low latency connection. Generally, anything below 20 milliseconds (ms) is considered fantastic. With SIRO’s 100% fibre to the home (FTTH) network, we aim to offer a ping rate of less than 10ms on average, allowing users to play at their best without delay.

SIRO’s Role in E-Sports

Globally, the Games industry is estimated to be worth more than $150bn annually, more than the film, music and television industry combined. Much of the recent increase in revenue can be attributed to the rise in popularity of online gaming and e-sports, driven in part by better internet connectivity across the globe. 2019 is set to be the first year where the global e-sports industry tops $1bn in revenue.  At €216m per annum, Ireland currently ranks 43^rd globally in revenue for gaming (an increase of 20% or €36m since 2018). We also rank 53^rd in e-sports league tables and according to PwC Ireland, along with gaming, the combined market is set to grow by a further 27% by 2023. It is estimated that e-sports has a global audience of 600 million people with 470,000 regular Irish viewers and players, according to the Irish Independent.  Broadband provider Pure Telecom reported that 22% of adults “watch or participate in e-sports” with 36% of Irish adults relying on a connection to play their game. Some commentators, such as iKydz estimate that 40% of internet usage in Ireland is exclusively online gaming. The rise in popularity of e-sports is coupled with the success of streaming platforms like Twitch which allows its users to share a live feed of their gameplay to fans across the globe. Twitch was initially created in 2011 but has grown rapidly since Amazon acquired it for $1bn in 2014. In 2018, it was estimated that over 1.3bn hours of Fortnite were watched alone.  E-sports tournaments such as the League of Legends 2019 championship have racked up over 1.7m peak viewers on for a single event. With this in mind, the popularity of e-sports in Ireland cannot be understated. Recently, Ireland played host to Insomnia Gaming Festival, an e-sports and gaming event that has been running in the UK for over 20 years and has reached destinations as far as Dubai. Thousands of e-sports enthusiasts flocked to Dublin to support their favourite teams, meet notable industry celebrities and experience the latest in online gaming. Most online games require a minimum connection of 10-25mbps to take part however for serious and professional players, the bare minimum connection doesn’t suffice and other considerations such as latency are just as important. It’s been reported that gamers are twice as likely to quit a game when they experience a network delay of an additional 0.5 milliseconds. At SIRO, we provide the gold standard in connectivity with speeds of 1 Gigabit per second (Gbps) which is 1,000 Mbps, with very low latency and jitter (the fluctuation of latency over time) to over 45 regional towns across Ireland. Whether your connection is required for professional or amateur use, SIRO guarantees a reliable, seamless gaming experience that will allow you to hone your skills.

Gaming and the Audio Visual Sector in Ireland

As well as catering towards the online gaming community, fibre to the building (FTTB) broadband can support the game development community in Ireland. Game development is a vital part of the broader Audio Visual sector in Ireland which consists of film, TV and animation, commercials, video games and radio. According to the 2018 Olsberg report, there are circa 17,000 jobs in the sector which have a Gross Value Added of over €1bn. Ireland is home to international gaming giants such as Activision Blizzard, EA and Microsoft and while the presence of their games development hubs strategically positions Ireland in the European Games Industry, local independent game developers say they need policy and infrastructural support to compete internationally. The Department of Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht Audio Visual Action Plan 2018 sets out the Governments objectives to boost investment in Ireland’s broader AV sector including emphasis on the significance of investment in the Video Games industry in Ireland to boost its competitiveness in the global market. The report has been welcomed by “IMIRT”, the industry organisation that supports games developments in Ireland but cites a number of concerns and challenges, beyond investment, in realising the potential of the industry. IMIRT Chairperson, Brenda Romero recommended that “co-working space[s] where developers with different areas of expertise could work together would elevate skill levels, offer space for community events and provide a common destination for potential partners to meet with Irish game developers.” In addition, gaming developers need access to very high capacity network (“VHCN”), i.e. fibre, in office spaces is essential as more and more, gaming evolves towards a predominantly online platform. According to the Cisco Visual Networking Index Internet gaming traffic is set to be 4 percent of global IP traffic by 2022, an increase of 1 percent in 2017. For cloud-based gaming such as STADIA to be possible, VHCN and an interconnected ICT infrastructure are required to handle the high bandwidth use from the server to the business

SIRO Supporting Gaming

SIRO provides 100% Fibre to the building (FTTB) broadband, enabling businesses who are developing games and gamers themselves experience an uncongested 1 Gigabit (1,000mbps) internet connection, always on and with very low latency and jitter. Currently, SIRO’s 100% fibre network is available to 45 towns and 285,000 homes and businesses nationwide. In addition, SIRO and Vodafone, recognising a need for co-working digital hubs in regional Ireland launched a “Gigabit Hub Programme” where qualifying digital hubs and co-working spaces are supported with Gigabit broadband. These Gigabit Hubs (of which there are now 15 nationwide) provide the space and the connectivity required by independent games developers. Whether it’s uploading data-heavy raw files or large game projects, a SIRO FTTB connection is the gold standard in connectivity for the gaming sector and means that independent games developers need not travel to Dublin to find that connectivity and space. This means the next independent Irish games company could come from Carlow or Cavan. Find out more about the role of SIRO Gigabit broadband in optimising online gaming.   Check your availability or email info@siro.ie   

If you’re into online gaming, you might have experienced it all: the lag, the stuttering, the dreaded ‘connection timeout’ message, the Fortnite game that takes hours to download… The majority of these issues could come down to your broadband connection. In this article, we explore the critical factors required for online gaming, and explain why SIRO 100% fibre broadband is the fool-proof solution for online gaming aficionados. Whether you’re into console or PC games, the below factors are key to an optimal online gaming experience. Latency Latency refers to how long it takes for a packet of data to get to its destination and return a response, which is crucial for fast reactions in gaming, especially First Person Shooter or Fighting games. Latency is usually measured in milliseconds (ms) and is commonly tested as ‘Ping’ in speed tests. In both the US and the UK, fibre connections have been shown to be superior in terms of latency (Source: pcgamer.com, broadband.co.uk). Generally, anything below 20ms is considered fantastic. SIRO aims to offer less than 10ms, allowing you to play, shoot, and kick the ball away without delay. Packet loss A good gaming experience requires a constant and steady stream of data. However, data frequently gets lost when transferred to or from a server. When a game becomes frozen or stutters, or when you get the dreaded ‘Connection timeout’ message on your PC, these are the results of packet loss. Packet loss can be particularly high during peak time, when many people are on the same network with multiple devices. You can measure packet loss as a percentage of data packets that get lost – this number should be as low as possible for a smooth gaming experience. When the level of package loss gets too high, this can results in a game being unplayable. With SIRO’s extremely reliable 100% fibre-optic cables going straight into your home, you’ll experience no discernible packet loss, while traditional copper cables can experience a significant amount as the data rate increases. Copper cables are prone to damage from environmental factors, from heat and humidity, which will only exacerbate the issue of packet loss. Jitter Jitter is a measurement of the variation in latency, measured in millliseconds. Like latency, jitter should be as low as possible to ensure a constant, uninterrupted flow of data. The acceptable level of jitter should be below 30ms – a high level of jitter can cause even more frustration for gamers than high latency or other network issues. The quality of the broadband line you are using can be the cause of jitter in gameplay. The more stable the broadband connection, the lower the jitter rate. Fibre connections are the most ideal for achieving low jitter – the jitter measurements on SIRO are consistently less than 5ms, which together with low latency and imperceptible packet loss ensure a smooth, consistent and overall pleasurable gaming experience. Tech support Good tech support is a major factor when considering new broadband for your online gaming. Gamers are more likely to run into complicated problems and require knowledgeable specialist support staff. SIRO partners with a wide range of retailers with excellent customer support – search your address to find out which retailers are available to you. Download Speed Even though speed is no longer the most critical factor for online gaming, would you rather wait 2 hours or 2 minutes for your favourite game to download? Some games can have very large file sizes – Grand Theft Auto V is 66GB, while Red Dead Redemption 2 is colossal at 99GB. SIRO’s 100% fibre connection offers download speeds of up to 1Gbps, while Ireland’s average is 38.81Mbps. In gaming terms, you’ll be able to download 99GB of the Red Dead game in 13 minutes with SIRO, as opposed to 5 hours 40 minutes on an average broadband connection in Ireland. In a nutshell, the faster the download speed, the less time you’ll have to wait to play that game you’ve waited years for. Convinced you need faster broadband? Take your gaming experience to the next level by switching to SIRO 100% fibre broadband with unparalleled reliability, imperceptible packet loss and speeds of up to 1Gbps. Search your address to see if your home is connectable.  

Pure Telecom today announces a deal worth up to €12M with Enet, Ireland’s largest open-access network operator. By leveraging a partnership that grants Enet access to SIRO’s infrastructure, Pure Telecom can offer high-speed broadband to 242,000 potential premises in regional towns across Ireland. Delivering speeds of up to 1 Gigabit per second, this deal will drive further competition in the broadband market by giving Pure Telecom access to additional locations equipped with 100% fibre-optic technology. In doing so, it will extend Pure Telecom’s ability to provide the fastest possible broadband speeds to more communities across Ireland. Paul Connell, CEO, Pure Telecom, said: “Demand for high-speed internet connections for consumers and businesses in rural and urban areas is at an all-time high. As a national service provider, we offer the best possible connection for every single customer in Ireland. This deal significantly increases the number of customers we can provide ultra-fast and reliable broadband to and gives customers a wider range of internet speeds that they can choose from for their specific needs. “We are delighted to announce this deal with Enet, which has direct access to the SIRO network, through which we can extend the reach of our high-speed fibre broadband offering. It allows us to leverage the huge broadband investments made by Enet and SIRO and ensure that we can now deliver the fastest available internet connections to even more homes and businesses.” David Eyre, Chief Commercial Officer, Enet, said: “We have made massive efforts to support retail service providers in the provision of superfast broadband to end users. Underpinning this, Enet has made a multi-million-euro investment in the development of an automated software platform that aggregates Enet’s own network as well as third party infrastructure. The new platform supports retail service providers in the provision of superfast broadband to end users, ensuring consumers have access to more choice, better reliability and faster broadband speeds. “By gaining access to almost a quarter-of-a-million fibre-enabled premises, Pure Telecom can continue to deliver high-speed broadband to an increasing number of regional locations. We are delighted to be working alongside Pure Telecom to ensure our investments in cutting-edge technology benefit more people across the country.” Ronan Whelan, Chief Commercial Officer, SIRO, said: “SIRO’s network delivers the most powerful full fibre broadband in Ireland. This latest agreement highlights how SIRO is driving competition in the broadband market and helping to reverse the digital divide in Ireland. Pure Telecom’s commitment to provide customers with the best connectivity, competitive pricing and better service through our wholesale network is great news for home and business customers.” Search your address to find out if you can connect to SIRO, Ireland's most powerful broadband network.

Today is Gimme Fibre Day, a day that celebrates Nobel Prize winner Sir Charles Kuen Kao, whose work on transmitting light through fibres revolutionised communications. This day, Kao’s birthday, is a day to acknowledge both his achievements and the benefits his work on optical fibre bring to the world. More than 95% of global digital data is carried by fibre optic cables and this technology touches every aspect of our lives, from facilitating communication with loved ones to enabling smart homes, smart cities and smart working. Many of today’s most complex problems necessitate the contribution of equally complex ICT solutions, which in turn depend on Very High Capacity Networks (VHCN) to transfer data at scale and at speed. One such problem is climate change. The challenge of reducing harmful emissions and adapting to an uncertain future climate will require enormous change, much of it technical, in every sector of the economy. A recent paper published by UK wholesale fibre network operator City Fibre pointed to the need for VHCNs to underpin ICT carbon reduction solutions across sectors such as energy, eHealth, transport, smart buildings and cloud computing. Without a high-speed, high-quality with low latency and resilient broadband network, these solutions will be difficult to adopt widely. At SIRO, we see building a future-proofed 100% fibre optic network as an important enabler for the transition to a sustainable economy. Our network currently reaches 275,000 homes and businesses across regional Ireland, with 50,000 customers and growing. FTTH networks themselves are more energy efficient than other access networks and research has shown that per gigabit, widespread adoption of FTTH infrastructure could be responsible for 88% fewer emissions in European countries than the alternatives. Public concern over climate change is growing. According to the Eurobarometer (2019), 75% of Irish people see it as a ‘very serious’ problem, up from 68% in 2017. While they see Government (48%), the EU (45%), business (39%) and themselves (43%) as being relatively equally responsible for tackling climate change, 62% of Irish respondents say they have personally taken action “to fight climate change over the past six months”. Proposals relating to specific Government actions, e.g. financial supports for clean energy transition and national renewable energy targets are heavily supported by Irish respondents (93% and 95% respectively). These results show that on the whole, Irish people are willing to make personal changes in behaviour to tackle climate change but they also see a need for these changes to be supported by Government action. However, business and industry also bear a huge responsibility, not only to decrease their own carbon footprint, but to empower the public, including their employees, to take their own actions on climate change.  

FTTH – empowering people to make change

Building a future-proofed 100% fibre-optic broadband network will help Irish people to make the changes they want to make in their own lives and work to help fight climate change. For the individual, there is potential to reduce transport emissions, in particular through facilitating remote working. A quantitative analysis using a lifecycle approach conducted by PwC for the FTTH Council North America found that within 6 years of its deployment, a typical FTTH network in the US will have a positive impact on the environment mainly due to the benefits of remote working.[1] As a company we believe that we should also empower our employees to make similar changes, and facilitate remote working where possible. At SIRO we have a mixture of office-based and field-based staff and while the options to work remotely are dependent on business needs, we aim to allow all those who desire it and whose role allows it, to work from home or a remote office/site. We are building our fibre network in towns in regional Ireland, so while our head office is in Carrickmines Dublin, many of our employees are based in towns across the country from Letterkenny to Tralee, to Galway and Dundalk. To get an idea of the prevalence and the appetite for remote working in SIRO and the carbon savings we could make by spending one day a week working from home, we recently surveyed the staff. We found that that SIRO staff respondents travel an average of 58km daily to their place of work. Those who travel by car travel an average of 62km daily to their place of work.[2] In keeping with the profile of the company, many SIRO employees live outside of Dublin, commuting to the office in Carrickmines from towns and cities such as Roscommon and Cork. Given the location of the office and the distribution of our build sites, it is unsurprising how far the average SIRO employee travels to get to work. Also reflecting our head office location and build sites, 87% of SIRO staff travel to work by private car or company van, with 8% taking public transport and 3% travelling by car share, 2% use other modes such as walking or motorcycle. The company already incentivises use of public transport through the Government Taxsaver scheme, other options to decrease emissions from travel to work are car sharing and remote working. When asked whether they would be open to car sharing, only 30% of respondents indicated they were and only 3% of people currently car share regularly. Remote working, on the other hand, is more popular, 63% of respondents reported working from home/remotely during the week. Of those that do not work remotely/from home [3], 60% of them said that they would like to. Aside from the other benefits of working from home, (e.g. better work-life balance), the emissions reductions can be significant. The Government’s Climate Action Plan estimates that every new remote worker will yield a net energy saving of 10kWh per day. In the UK, it has been estimated that the nationwide availability of faster broadband could save 1.6 million tonnes of CO₂ emissions per annum due to remote working and a reduction in work travel alone.[4]  

The Benefits of Remote Working on CO₂ Emissions

From our survey, we calculated that on average a SIRO employee working from home one day a week for a year would save 724 kg CO₂, or 0.72 tonnes CO₂ emissions each, or approximately 5% of an Irish person’s emissions per annum (13.3 tonnes per capita 2017) Not everyone who wishes to work remotely wishes to work from home. An option many found attractive was working from a digital/co-working hub. If it was available, 26% would work from a hub occasionally and 38% would work from a hub frequently/very frequently. Through a partnership with Vodafone, SIRO sponsors 15 Gigabit hubs in regional towns around the country, giving them access to two year’s free 1 Gigabit connection. Recent research by Vodafone found that Gigabit hubs make a substantial economic contribution to the towns they are based in and it estimated that 5,200 jobs could be supported.[12] That’s 5,200 people who can avoid a lengthy commute. By giving people who live in regional towns the option to work in a local Gigabit hub rather than commute to the nearest city most likely by car, they are also empowering people to reduce their carbon emissions. Dr Kao would no doubt be pleased with the significant efforts going on across Europe to “Switch Off” Copper networks and replace them with Very High Capacity (VHCN) Fibre networks, both in the backhaul trunk networks and the local last mile access networks. Greater adoption of this infrastructure he pioneered has the dual benefit of driving the EU Digital Agenda and competitiveness and also contributing to the decarbonising of industry and transportation. Happy birthday Sir Charles from SIRO.     [1] PwC (2008), ‘Developing a Generic Approach for FTTH Solutions using Life Cycle Analysis Methodology to Determine Environmental Benefits of FTTH Deployments in the USA’. [2] Response rate of 58% [3] 37% do not currently work from home/remotely [4] SQW (2013), UK Broadband Impact Study.  Found in WIK Consult (2018), The Benefits of Ultrafast Broadband

SIRO, the open-access wholesale broadband provider delivering Ireland’s first 100% fibre-optic broadband network, has announced The Brewery in Dundalk as its first Gigabit Park. The connections are available to 39 businesses in the park, provided by SIRO’s retail partner Digiweb. SIRO’s Gigabit connectivity will allow businesses to avail of broadband that is three times faster than the best service available in Dublin (350 Mbps) and 10 times more powerful than the fastest average internet speed in Ireland. Built on a 20-acre site on the outskirts of Dundalk, The Brewery Business Park, which is developed on the site of the former Macardle Moore brewery, has been transformed into a vibrant business park, exploiting the many assets that this location possesses. Digiweb provide several 100% fibre optic broadband packages for both residential and business customers, with speeds ranging from 150 Megabits per second (Mbps) to one Gigabit per second (Gbps), with pricing from as little as €44.95 per month. Digiweb’s “Electric Broadband” services went live in Dundalk in 2016.  

New Investment in Dundalk

Commenting on the announcement, SIRO's Chief Commercial Officer, Ronan Whelan, said: “We are delighted to boost the success of companies in residence at The Brewery Business Park. Dundalk was the first town in the country connected to the SIRO network and the demand has been phenomenal to date. This announcement forms part of our strategy to revitalise towns across Ireland by sparking a digital transformation, helping to attract investment and encouraging more people to establish businesses in regional towns like Dundalk. “Our network is better than the alternatives as it is powered entirely by light, future-proofing the country’s broadband needs for decades. This investment will give these businesses access to the most powerful broadband available in Ireland, enabling them to have the same competitive advantage in terms of connectivity as leading international hubs like Tokyo and Hong Kong.” Digiweb Operations Manager, Brendan McGahon, added: “Since joining the SIRO network in 2016, we have seen the profound benefits that our Electric Broadband powered by SIRO delivers to business. Companies at The Brewery Business Park now have access to the gold standard for broadband internationally and we have no doubt that it will enable them to reach new heights. Our Fibre-to-the-Home Electric Broadband powered by SIRO service is now available to over 250,000 premises nationwide. As this number continues to grow, along with our partners in SIRO we will be actively looking for opportunities to provide solutions into similar business parks countrywide.”  

SIRO's Retail Family is Growing

SIRO is a joint venture of ESB and Vodafone which is investing €450 million in building Ireland’s first 100% Fibre-to-the-Home (FTTH) broadband network to 50 towns and city areas throughout Ireland. Using the existing ESB network, SIRO delivers fibre optic cables all the way to the building. This technology, known as Fibre-to-the-Building, has no copper connections at any point to slow down the network and delivers 1 Gigabit speeds. The wholesale broadband operator’s network now has 11 retailers offering connections to over 250,000 homes and businesses in 45 towns across the country. SIRO is offered on an open-access basis to all telecoms retailers in Ireland. SIRO has formed partnerships with 11 operators – Vodafone, Digiweb, Sky, BT, Carnsore Broadband, Rocket Broadband, Kerry Broadband, eNet, Airwire, Pure Telecom and WestNet – with more retailers expected to come on board as the company drives competition in the wholesale broadband market.