The Government has moved to put the digital economy centre stage in its strategy for economic growth, recovery and job creation.
The launch of ‘Technology Actions to Support the Smart Economy’ this month recognises the national imperative to secure Ireland’s digital future and what actions need to happen to make it a reality.
The strategy brings key components of the digital economy together – infrastructure, innovation and green technology – into one programme.
The wide-ranging plan includes the creation of an Exemplar fibre network and an International Content Services Centre, similar to the IFSC. If successful, the plan has the potential to create 25,000 new jobs, according to the Government.....
Keeping Intune
The construction of an Exemplar network, which will dovetail with the Government’s One Stop Shop and will tie-in with the 94 Metropolitan Area Network (MAN) towns, will be spearheaded by a young Irish technology company called Intune Networks. The investment will result in 350 new jobs at the company.
Intune Networks has developed the world’s first programmable fibre optic platform, which is critical to building an Exemplar smart network. The technology effectively uses different colours of light to prioritise web traffic to ensure it arrives at its destination faster. This innovation has already excited the interest of City of London traders who are passionate about fibre, while the Government will present the technology before the EU Parliament and the World Economic Forum.
Tim Fritzley, CEO of Intune Networks, says that the plan is to kick off straightaway by creating a template based on a geographic area known as a ‘captured network’, which will be replicated across the country throughout 2010.
The plan includes making use of the rich tapestry of data centres to support cloud-computing businesses and using wireless spectrum efficiently to make Ireland a test-bed for future wireless services.
It is estimated that more than 5,000 direct jobs and a further 5,000 indirect jobs will be created over a five- to 10-year period from the network investment.
However, the core network is only one aspect. Ireland’s next-generation access network needs to be built and few operators, apart from Magnet and Smart Telecom, provide fibre-to-the-home. A pioneering joint venture between Vodafone and BT will see the companies pool resources to sort out the existing problems with copper exchanges, give homes and businesses 24Mbps speeds and could result in further progress around next-generation access via fibre.
The second part of Ryan and Lenihan’s plan involves creating energy-efficient data centres and cloud computing infrastructure. Ireland has a rich trove of data centres such as Data Electronics and Servecentric in Dublin and the Cork Internet eXchange. Choosing to prioritise the development of these centres across Ireland, the Government says, will result in 10,000 high-value jobs over the next 10 years.
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