UUNET trebles the total Internet bandwidth available for the Irish economy
UUNET, an MCI WorldCom company and a global leader in Internet communication solutions, today announces the deployment of its state-of-the-art Internet hub in Ireland, offering business and wholesale customers of all sizes high speed, high bandwidth global Internet services.
In this first stage of the development, UUNET will be deploying a global transit Internet hub with twin 45Mbps circuits into UUNET's global network backbone. This will offer Irish businesses and Internet Service Providers (ISPs) significant improvements in performance and reliability via direct, faster connections into the USA, Europe and Asia. The 90Mbps of new bandwidth provided by UUNET is double the aggregate of the bandwidth Â- estimated to be less than 50Mbps - provided by all the other ISPs currently in Ireland. Further expansion and new Internet services will be announced during 1999.
Availability of these UUNET services will be through MCI WorldCom's Dublin operation, and will continue to boost Ireland's recent economic growth and drive the building of a world-class environment for successful E-Commerce. The provision of a high bandwidth Internet hub makes MCI WorldCom ideally positioned to help contribute to the development of Ireland's excellent international trading infrastructure and rapidly developing information industries. For example, the new access to its high bandwidth backbone will allow UUNET to offer Irish businesses a full range of dedicated leased lines in speeds from 64Kbps to 8Mbps.
UUNET has developed a highly reliable and widely deployed international IP backbone. Irish businesses will now benefit from UUNET transatlantic bandwidth of over 1,000Mbps, which is a ten-fold increase since 1997, and a seven-fold increase in intra-European network capacity from 400Mbps to almost 3,000 Mbps between April and September 1998. UUNET's policy is to maintain investment in new capacity ahead of customer demand.
Pat Chapman-Pincher, senior vice president, UUNET International said: "Global E-Commerce needs a world-class Internet infrastructure equivalent to the capacity and investment which UUNET is deploying in Ireland. Our development in Ireland comes at a time when UUNET is aggressively extending its international backbone into other major markets in Europe, Asia and the Pacific Rim, and driving the growth of E-Commerce as a result."
Seán Melly, chief executive, MCI WorldCom in Ireland said: "On several fronts Irish businesses are ahead of other European markets in their use of the Internet, with three quarters online today and double the number in 1996 (source: Information Society Commission). Irish corporates know the advantages of electronic business and increasingly require the more resilient, faster connections to the Internet that we are now able to offer through UUNET, our global Internet company."
"MCI WorldCom has established a rapidly growing presence in Ireland in recent years and the launch of UUNET Internet services now completes our portfolio of voice, data and Internet services," he added.
Mary O'Rourke, minister for public enterprise, said: "The arrival of the UUNET global transit hub to Ireland will have significant benefits for Irish businesses as our economy looks to export its skills and services to an ever increasing global market. Having the infrastructure in place to support indigenous business will contribute to the globalisation and competitiveness of Irish companies."
