eNet wins MSE contract

Moriarty

From yesterdays Sunday Times..

Enet wins €170m network contract
Ciaran Hancock

ENET, a Limerick-based telecoms company, is set to manage the state’s new €170m fibre-optic network.
Enet will close an €11m fund-raising in the next two weeks in a move that will allow it to compete head-to-head with Eircom and Esat BT in providing a range of telecom services to network operators and businesses. It is understood the funds are being raised through a mixture of equity and debt and will see new institutional investors back the company.

The funds will be used as working capital by the company, which was set up in 2000 but has yet to trade. Owned by Michael and Maeve Tiernan, who control Tiernan Properties, eNet recently began putting in place the foundation blocks to begin trading, starting with a number of senior appointments.

Last week, it emerged that Eoin O’Driscoll, managing director of Aderra, a consulting firm, would take over as chairman of the company. O’Driscoll is former head of Lucent Ireland and also chairs the Enterprise Strategy Group, which is advising the government on industrial policy and economic competitiveness.

George McGrath, the former chief executive of Ocean, a telecoms joint venture between BT and ESB that was folded into Esat in the late 1990s, is expected to be given a senior role within the company.

Enet was awarded preferred bidder status for the government contract in January. It will initially manage the state’s new fibre-optic network in 19 regional locations. This is expected to be expanded to 88 locations in the coming years.While the state will retain ownership of the network, the contract to manage it is believed to be worth several million euros over a 10-year period.

dahamsta

Isn't this old news? And wasn't there some connection between eNet and Eircom?

oscarBravo

I'm assuming the news is that they've gone from "preferred bidder" status (not that I've ever figured out what the hell that means) to actually having won the contract. Which is potentially good news, if they are going to be depending for revenue on actually doing something useful with the fibre rings.

As to the Eircom link: one of the consortium members is TE Services, an Eircom spinoff. The board has an ex-Telecom Eireann person, a current Eircom board member, and a CWU chappie on it.

watty

And how exactly does anyone connect to this glorious network?

Smoke signals?

iwb

First of all, the MSE winner hasn't been announced yet, at least not that I have seen. The way I understand it, the process is still ongoing and although newspaper reports are strongly suggesting that eNet is the preferred bidder, even this has never been confirmed by either eNet nor the Department.
The reason for that is the process is (supposed to be) totally confidential and between the bidders and the Department. Having said all that, these newspaper reports don't come out of thin air so I would expect an announcement very shortly and I would assume eNet will be the winner.
As for how you connect to the MAN's, it has been discussed to death in past posts in this and other forums. The bottom line is that telcos will be lighting up the fibre where it is economically advantageous. Smart telecom is chasing the MAN's to get businesses connected over fibre to 2Mbps and up services, replacing leased lines at a fraction of the cost and with the potential to increase bandwidth at the flick of a switch.

thegills

so I would expect an announcement very shortly

There will be an announcement before the local elections.

As for how you connect to the MAN's

There are already customers on some of the MANs. Only licensed operators can access the MAN's too.

Xian

Originally posted by thegills
Only licensed operators can access the MAN's too.

WRT GDSs that's FUD

There are no licensed operators, only authorised operators.

EU Regulatory Framework
As and from 25th July 2003 the licensing structure provided for by Section 111 of the Postal and Telecommunications Act 1983 has been replaced by a general authorisation procedure.

The objective is to harmonise and simplify the authorisation rules and conditions to facilitate the freedom to provide electronic communications networks and services.

Any operator intending to provide such networks or services must first notify ComReg. When the notification is received the operator is deemed to be authorised.

Confirmatiion has been given by ComReg that community broadband co-operatives are de facto authorised without the notification requirement. Ergo, a GDS can access the MAN.

Of course, it does prevent yer ma from hooking up to it

iwb

Hey Pal,
If my ma lived near one of the MAN's she should have every right to connect to it!! Power to the people.:D

shinzon

So even with all this hoo haa, does it mean that were still months maybe years away from being able to access the mans, does this only put in place the management of the mans or what

Shin

iwb

The MAN's are in use right now. As thegills pointed out, providers are connected for specific clients. Once the MSE is appointed, it will need some time to get going I assume but I would imagine it will be keen to sign up more providers. If it was signed this week, I would think they will be taking orders before too long more.
Again though, with my poor tired fingers I am not going to go into it all over but the bottom line is that you will need to be a fairly big user to get connected.
My ma wouldn't attract the providers with the requirement for 56k at the moment.