Three Ireland for 4G and 5G leadership

The jostling between eir Ireland and Three Ireland for 4G and 5G leadership on this island is indicative of a healthy market dynamic, with over 1,000 5G sites now live across the two operators and outdoor coverage reaching >50% of the population.

Recently, eir Ireland has begun to beef up the 4G anchor on its sites, accelerating the deployment of the 2100MHz band (15MHz) and, therefore, bringing to 40MHz the quantity of spectrum available on CA sites.

While it has yet to widely deploy the 700MHz band, it has the capability to do so on rebuilt Huawei sites and continues an ambitious coverage expansion programme based on the location of monopoles at its rural exchange PoPs.

In terms of 5G, the operator now has >570 sites live across 111 towns/cities. These sites are composed of 3.6GHz (n78–80MHz) and 1800MHz (n3). It is understood that about 3/4 of these 5G sites are based on gigabit-capable n78.

Three Ireland, meanwhile, has also achieved impressive 5G availability with Ericsson through the deployment of a 100MHz n78 layer and n8 across >430 sites. This builds on the foundations of what is becoming an exemplary 4G network.

The recent Systemics-PAB report that the operator commissioned will have ruffled feathers in Vodafone, whose n78 5G network is tiny by comparison.