Magnet Networks, an Internet service provider with operations in the UK and Ireland, has equipped 120 apartments in the Dublin suburb of Stillorgan with gigabit fiber-optic broadband connections as part of a wider experiment to see what people will do with such speeds.
Tenants moving into a South Dublin apartment development next week will get to experience some of the fastest home broadband in the world, as 120 apartments have been fitted out by Magnet Networks with a 1-Gbps fiber connection – a full 10X times faster than the current fastest connection available in the majority of Ireland. Users will be able to enjoy gigabit speeds for both uploads and downloads.
Magnet says Project Leap will monitor broadband use in the connected homes to determine the impact of ultra-fast speed and connectivity on Irish consumers’ use of devices and applications. It is expected that average household broadband usage will accelerate rapidly in a gigabit environment from the current average of 22.7GB of data per month. On average, that breaks down to 68% Web browsing, 10% Netflix, 7% Google including YouTube, 5% Torrents, 0.6% RTE.ie, and 9.4% other types of traffic, the operator says.
Magnet sees Project Leap as “an investment project” and an opportunity to scope out the broadband of the future. The operator is also using the project as a calling card as it engages with construction firms and resident groups to deploy fiber technology in new and existing builds. Magnet says Project Leap could lead to the future roll-out of 1-Gbps fiber-optic broadband to its current fiber customers as well as new towns and cities in Ireland where there is demand.
“We are transferring our leading-edge capability and corporate fiber horsepower in the business sector to the residential environment,” explains Magnet chief executive Mark Kellett. “This capability puts us in a unique position being more agile and able to go anywhere in a market where other providers are limited to 100 Mbps, and allows us to provide a competitive advantage to companies locating here, to the direct benefit of Ireland Inc.”
Based in Clonshaugh in Dublin, Magnet is a sister company of Hibernia Atlantic, the transatlantic submarine cable operator and fiber-optic network services provider, through its parent CVC.
Businesses are also known to cluster around super-normal connectivity as Magnet has proved through its subsidiary company in the UK, Velocity1, which is enabling the blossoming “smart city” of Wembley City in London. Last week, Velocity1 enabled one of the world’s largest online gaming events – Riot Games: League of Legends – with a 20-Gbps connection in London’s Wembley Arena, which was streamed live to millions of gaming enthusiasts worldwide.
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