TELECOM Eireann will provide local call access to the Internet for the entire rate within the next 12 months, according to its chief executive, Alfie Kane. It has also upgraded its international access lines to the Internet. This will lead to faster access for many Irish users, a spokesman for the company said.
Telecom has been experimenting with nine nodes, or "points of presence" (POPs) for the past four months. These are now operational, and Telecom has already signed a deal with Internet service provider Indigo, which will allow it access to the nodes.
Before the end of next March Telecom intends to have a network of up to 30 POPs which will be made available to service providers at a rate which a Telecom spokesman described as "good, value".
The development of the net work means that Ireland will be one of the first countries in Europe to provide Internet access to its entire population at local call rates, a Telecom spokesman said. Anywhere between five and 10 service providers are expected to buy port access on the new network.
Although a spokesman conceded that service providers may decide not to service some isolated areas, he said that this problem would be faced if and when it occurred.
"Phone companies have been completely sandbagged by the Internet," he said. "Big companies like AT&T have been especially late into the market. Companies have been coming at the issue from a `phone centric' point of view. We have to think differently."
A Telecom subsidiary, Eirtrade, expects to begin competing for corporate Internet users next month. However, Telecom will service its subsidiary in exactly the same way as all other service providers, a spokesman said.
Since the beginning of the year Telecom has been testing a 2 megabit line to the US and 128k line to Stockholm. Those lines, which connect Ireland to the backbones of both the US and European networks, are now operational and commercially available.
The lines will make it cheaper for service providers to access these networks, a spokesman for Telecom said. He also said it would improve the quality of access available to end users, as service providers would be less likely to oversell the capacity on their lines.