MOBILE NETWORK THREE has announced a €38m contract with BT, which will result in BT’s fibre network being rolled out to more than 200 new mobile sites and support to a further 1,000 sites that currently serve Three’s customer base.

The roll-out will take place over the next 18 months and will allow higher broadband speeds of up to 100Mb per second. The sites will include Dublin, Cork, Limerick  and Galway cities and countries.

BT Ireland has provided transmission solutions to Three for the past seven years and in the last year has developed a Total Transmission Solution – a unique end-to-end bandwidth transmission solution. BT’s Total Transmission solution, which is future-proofed and ready for LTE (next generation 4G services), involves the expansion of fibre-based access transmission into Three’s Radio Access Networks allowing higher broadband speeds of up to 100Mb per second per site across the network.

Welcoming the announcement, CEO of Three Robert Finnegan said: “As Ireland’s largest high speed mobile network, Three has invested over €800 million in infrastructure in Ireland to deliver much-needed voice, text and broadband services. The smartphone economy is driving huge demand for data services and analysts expect over 340 million smartphones to be sold this year worldwide.”

“Today’s announcement of a further €38 million investment into our network strengthens Three’s position as the Irish consumer champion and market-leader as we commit to enhancing our network with the technology to deliver up to 100mb per second nationwide .”