Vodafone is Ireland’s first operator to trial gigabit speed on its mobile network Vodafone to invest €500m over the next three years
02 March 2017
- Vodafone announces Ireland’s first Gigabit speed trial
- Vodafone Ireland will be first to market with a live NB-IoT network and first in launching improved 4G+ speeds on its commercial network
- Vodafone now covers over 95pc 4G population coverage across Ireland
2nd March 2017: Demonstrating Vodafone Ireland’s commitment to driving a gigabit society and keeping Ireland at the forefront of mobile technology innovation globally, the company has today announced that is the first Irish operator to achieve Gigabit speeds on its mobile network. This speed was achieved on the live mobile network in Dublin by transmitting files to a mobile phone over the air in real life conditions *.
The company also announced a €500m investment in Ireland over the next three years across mobile, broadband, fibre to the home, network infrastructure and enhanced customer care systems.
Currently Vodafone Ireland’s Narrowband (NB-IoT) network is being trialled and will be commercially available in the summer of 2017. This means that Vodafone will ensure that Ireland is among the first countries in the world to bring NB-IoT to market.
NB-IoT is a technology that will cost-effectively connect millions more devices to the internet, deliver extended coverage capability, longer battery life and will be a key enabler of the Smart Cities of the future. Using IOT (Internet of things) technologies, Smart Cities will transform the way people live by utilising the latest technologies to make services such as transport more efficient, to make healthcare and education more accessible and to make business and industry more competitive.
Vodafone Ireland is also making great strides towards Gigabit speeds on its mobile network by being first to market to introduce new 4G Evolution features that will increase speeds and capacity of its 4G+ network. These features speed up information transfer rates by up to 30% in download and 50% in upload allowing customers to, for example, send files to the Cloud with transfer speeds of up to 112Mbps or download content with speeds of up to 300Mbps, radically changing how customers use and view content. These latest innovations have already been deployed in some areas in Dublin.
Madalina Suceveanu, Chief Technology Officer, Vodafone Ireland said: “Achieving Gigabit speeds on our mobile network and the launch of NB-IoT in November 2016 are important milestones in Vodafone Ireland’s innovation journey. We are preparing our mobile infrastructure for the future, which is helping us support Irish businesses to be at the forefront of connectivity - across both traditional mobile and connected machines. We are already in the process of preparing the wide scale roll-out of our commercial NBIOT network this coming summer, the launch of Voice over 4G later on this year, as well as pushing forward with achieving gigabit speeds. This all drives and reinforces our vision for a gigabit society in Ireland.”
She added; “We are also delighted to acknowledge the recent results of ComReg’s own Drive Tests**, which measure network coverage delivered by all operators. The tests clearly demonstrate the superiority of Vodafone’s 4G network across the entire country. Additionally, Vodafone has been recognised in an independent study by P3 Communications as the ‘Best in Test’ telecommunications operator for data and voice in the quality and performance of its mobile network.”**
Madalina Suceveanu, concluded; “At Vodafone Ireland, we’ve always prioritised our strategic investment plan to ensure that our customers receive and enjoy a seamless connected experience. In the last year alone we’ve completed our nationwide network upgrade, improved our existing voice and data services, as well as further increasing our 4G footprint to over 95% of the population. We will provide higher speed services; and will soon launch Voice over 4G, where mobile customers will experience ultra-high definition voice calls, alongside a much faster call setup time. In the coming weeks the company will also be trialling voice over WI-FI.”
-ENDS- For further information please contact:
Clodagh O’Hagan, Vodafone Ireland: clodagh.ohagan@vodafone.com or 087 9084055
Paul Griffin, ReputationInc: pgriffin@reputation-inc.com or 087 6674305
* Gigabit speeds were achieved on the live commercial network in Dublin by transmitting files to a mobile phone over the air in real life conditions using Ericsson radio and a Qualcomm® Snapdragon™ X16 LTE mobile test device”
** ComReg Assessment of Mobile Network Operators’ Compliance with Licence Obligations (Coverage) Summer 2016 (Ref 16/113) and latest P3 results announced October 2016
About Vodafone:
Vodafone is Ireland's leading total communications provider with 2.3 million customers and employs over 2,000 people directly and indirectly in Ireland.
Vodafone provides a total range of communications solutions including voice, messaging, data and fixed communications to consumers and to small, medium and large businesses. Since 2011, Vodafone has expanded its enterprise division, offering integrated next-generation fixed and mobile solutions in addition to cloud-based platforms, machine to machine services and professional ICT support.
Vodafone Group is one of the world's leading international mobile communications groups with mobile operations in 26 countries, partners with mobile networks in 49 more, and fixed broadband operations in 17 markets. For more information, please visit www.vodafone.ie
