Up to 25,000 new jobs could be in the pipeline if a series of projects aimed at transforming Ireland into one of the world’s foremost digital economies come to fruition, Communications Minister Eamon Ryan TD and information society minister Conor Lenihan TD said today.
In what is one of the boldest steps yet taken by an Irish Government towards putting the country at the forefront of the digital age the Government is to focus on building a smart broadband network called the Exemplar Network that makes use of multiple colours of fibre to dramatically boost the speed of fibre-based communications.
Minister Ryan told siliconrepublic.com that the One Stop Shop to pull together all the stranded fibre assets owned by the State that could tie together 90pc of Irish urban centres will be ready to operate in early Autumn and connect the Exemplar Network to the country’s 94 Metropolitan Area Network that encircle key towns.
The resulting network will make Ireland ripe for new job creation by inward investments as well as enable entrepreneurs to set up world class businesses in any parish in Ireland.
Tim Fritzley, CEO of Intune Networks the company that will build the Exemplar Network, said that the plan is to kickstart straightaway by creating a template based on a geographic area known as a ‘captured network’ and replicate it across the country throughout 2010. The plan has already attracted the interest of the City of London which has a major financial community.
The Government’s deal with Intune will result in 300 new jobs for R&D workers and telecoms engineers and work is set to begin immediately.
The networks plan includes making use of the rich tapestry of data centres to support cloud computing businesses, use wireless spectrum efficiently to make Ireland a testbed for future wireless services.
The plan also includes establishing an Internet Content Services Centre that will enable digital rightsholders for movies, music and video games to go to market with intellectual property rights firmly and clearly established. “We believe the ICSC could replicate and even excel beyond what we achieved with the IFSC,” said Neil Leyden, one of the contributors to the Government’s report ‘Technology Actions to Support the Smart Economy.’
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