Huawei and Imagine to rollout fixed wireless access broadband across Ireland

Imagine will use Huawei’s WTTx solution, which uses the latest 4.5G technologies (such as massive MIMO and Massive carrier aggregation) for a fixed access network, to deliver 200Mbps plus connectivity across the country, removing the “digital divide” between urban and rural areas. It will begin network rollout in October and is seeking to cover 85 per cent of the market by 2019, save for limited urban areas where high-speed broadband over cable is available. This will be underpinned by the recent 3.6 GHz spectrum release – Imagine obtained the right to use 60MHz in this band in each of the rural regions at a cost of €10 million under a 15-year licence.

In a limited commercial trial of the Imagine LTE fixed wireless access network in selected rural areas with a 70Mbps service, in less than a year, Imagine has already connected 16,000 customers, with more than 100,000 customers applying for the service.