enet chooses Agile Networks/Calix partnership to support Ireland’s growing digital economy
Agile Networks, an award-winning specialist network integrator based in Dublin, has partnered with Calix, an international software company, to support Ireland’s first ‘fibredirect’ initiative, aimed at boosting the digital activities of SMEs in small towns across the country.
Ireland’s digital economy is valued at 8.4billion*, with consumers spending nearly €6 billion online. Only 24 per cent of Irish SMEs are trading in online sales, however, with approximately 60 per cent of Ireland’s annual online spend going overseas; highlighting a significant potential for growth.
enet, a private company, which operates fibre optic infrastructure on behalf of the Irish State and which already serves the main service providers in the country with open access fibre, recently rolled out its first fibredirect service in Claremorris, County Mayo, with the Agile Networks/Calix solution a key technology in the process
enet are now set to make a further investment of €2.5 million in fibre infrastructure to create three new fibre towns in Loughrea, County Galway; Ardee, County Louth and Kilkenny City.
The fibredirect initiative aims to extend services to local Internet Service Providers (ISPs) in towns and cities throughout Ireland, particularly targeting small and medium-sized enterprises.
As Ireland’s first fibre town, Claremorris’ broadband infrastructure received an investment of €500,000, meaning broadband speeds of up to 250 megabits per second (Mbps) have been available in the community since late September.
Darragh Richardson, Managing Director of Agile Networks, which last month was crowned ‘StartUp of The Year’ at the Bank of Ireland StartUp Awards said: “The Calix portfolio is an excellent fit for enet’s needs and we believe introducing this technology into the marketplace will be truly disruptive in allowing greater rollout of fibre services in Ireland. Our partnership with Calix underlines the commitment to combine leading technology with local expertise, which is critical to the success of a national project of this scale and importance.”
Through the Agile Networks/Calix partnership, the Calix E7-2 Ethernet Service Access Platform (ESAP) and P- and T-Series fibre services gateways mean that small scale deployments can grow as customer demand increases, providing greater connectivity and increasing prospects for competitiveness and job creation.
enet’s Network Engineering Manager, Jim Molony said: ”We had looked at a number of vendors to provide a suitable solution for our ‘fibredirect’ product, and early in the selection process it became clear that the Calix/Agile partnership was the right fit for enet. The scalability options offered with the E7 platform give us the flexibility to grow locations to match rollout needs without disruptive re-provisioning in order to scale up.”
Molony added, “Deployment of the Calix solution in Claremorris has proven very successful, with the simplicity with which services could be provisioned on the Calix platform being a major factor. This gives us great confidence in moving forward with ‘fibredirect’ rollouts to many more locations, and strengthening further our Calix/Agile relationship.”
Andy Lockhart, Senior Vice President, International Sales at Calix, said: “enet’s ‘fibredirect’ is an ambitious and impressive way of allowing Irish businesses to remain competitive in both urban and rural communities and we are pleased to play a key role in this initiative. Our E7 solutions are ideal for this kind of demand- and cost-driven model and we look forward to many further deployments in Ireland.”
Agile Networks (www.agilenetworks.ie), which was set up in 2011, offers a full lifecycle of integration services and works with 14 of the top 25 internet service providers in Ireland. The Blanchardstown-based company has grown its client base from just seven customers in 2011 to 60 this year alone and currently supports over 1.2 million end users, across 1,200 sites.
At the annual Bank of Ireland StartUp Awards in October, Agile Networks was revealed as Ireland’s 2014 ‘StartUp of The Year’, as well as ‘Service Startup of the Year’. The company has also been acknowledged as ‘Reseller of the Year’ at the 2014 Tech Excellence Awards; ‘Emerging New Business Award’ at the 2014 SFA National Business Awards and received the Ruban d’Honneur, representing Ireland, at the 2013/14 European Business Awards Finals in Athens in May.
*Source: The Second UPC Report on Ireland’s Digital Future / June 2014 http://www.upc.ie/pdf/upcdigitalindex.pdf
