An announcement by Comreg, the statutory body responsible for the regulation of Ireland’s communications sector, means that faster 4G speeds and wireless internet services will soon be available in Roscommon.
In a statement released earlier Comreg says that five licences have been awarded to use the 3.6 GHz broadcasting band. In simple terms it means that 86% more “space” is available for providers to offer services. It also means that Ireland will be in a strong position to roll-out 5G Phone and Internet services in the future.
Minister Denis Naughten has welcomed the news stating:
“Today’s announcement by ComReg is hugely significant, particularly for people in rural Ireland. The level of frustration felt by people in rural Ireland at the lack of quality mobile and wireless broadband service is something that I have been working to address since becoming Communications Minister.
Today’s announcement will mean an 86% increase in spectrum capacity to meet the growing demand for mobile and wireless broadband service across rural and urban areas. The award of 15 year licences for spectrum rights of use to Imagine, Airspan Spectrum Holdings, Vodafone Ireland, Three Ireland, and Meteor will provide a degree of stability as well as creating future investment certainty. The award of this new spectrum can potentially benefit hundreds of thousands of people and I urge operators to move early in rolling out their services.
Today’s results complement the work of the Mobile Phone and Broadband Taskforce. I established the Taskforce to address the level of frustration felt by customers, especially in rural Ireland, in not receiving the level of services they expect and deserve.
The Taskforce is working on eliminating barriers to telecommunications infrastructure across the country. The longer term result from today’s announcement will be that Ireland will be much better placed for any future 5G deployment and enable us to play a leading role as a digital leader in the EU” he concluded