Roll out of SIRO fibre broadband to begin in Tipperary Town next month

A company that has made fibre broadband available to thousands of homes and businesses in Clonmel and Cashel in the south of the county is to begin installing the same high speed internet infrastructure in Tipperary Town next month.  

SIRO announced the commencement of the roll-out of its fibre broadband to Tipperary Town at the May meeting of Tipperary County Council in Clonmel last week during a presentation by representatives of the company to councillors on its investment of more than €20m in high speed broadband infrastructure in the county to date. 

Amanda Glancy, SIRO’s Director of Corporate Affairs, told the meeting that SIRO was a joint venture formed in 2015 between ESB and Vodafone to roll out high quality, reliable fibre broadband along the ESB’s existing network to large and mid-sized towns and their suburbs.  

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The company is a wholesale open access network provider and the broadband fibre it installs is available through 20  retailers such as Vodafone nationwide. Virgin Media is coming  on board soon as a retailer of   SIRO fibre broadband. 

So far SIRO has rolled out fibre broadband to 126 towns around the country making it available to almost 500,000 homes and businesses and plans to install the infrastructure in 30 more towns reaching 770,000 premises by 2026. 

SIRO’s Director of Build Denis Cambridge outlined that in county Tipperary to date, the company has rolled out fibre broadband to 7,975 residential and commercial premises in Cashel, Clonmel, Nenagh and Roscrea. 

It began work in April 2022 on installing the infrastructure in Thurles with the project due to be completed in the final four months of this year.  It’s planned to connect 3,400 homes in Thurles to  SIRO fibre broadband. 

  In Clonmel, SIRO broadband is available to 5,294 premises while  in Cashel it’s  available to 315 residential and business premises . 

Additional fibre installation works are planned to start in Cashel  later this year or early next year to roll it out to 2,000 premises in the town.

  The company plans to complete its roll out  of fibre broadband to Nenagh later this year or into next year.

In relation to Tipperary Town, SIRO said in a statement  it’s targeting rolling out fibre broadband to 2,250 premises in  the town for late 2023/early 2024. 

 Tipperary County Council CEO Joe MacGrath said this investment in  broadband  is  very welcome and he looked forward to the council continuing to work with SIRO. 

Mayor of Clonmel Cllr Pat English thanked SIRO for installing fibre broadband infrastructure in Clonmel and said it was making a big difference to people who want to work from home.  

Roscrea Cllr Noel Coonan asked SIRO’s representatives why they didn’t install fibre broadband in rural Ireland and was told National Broadband Ireland (NBI) has the contract for rural areas.  

Cllr John Crosse said he was disappointed with the progress of fibre broadband roll out in rural Ireland, which  has been left behind.  

Cllr Marie Murphy proposed the council request representatives of NBI  to give a presentation to the council and explain the distinction between it and SIRO.