Virgin Media's new partnership with SIRO will see its services available to over 500,000 additional households nationwide.
Virgin Media announced last August that it was partnering with the superfast SIRO network, to allow it to offer its services to more customers.
And it has now confirmed that from June, the higher speeds offered by SIRO will be available through Virgin Media.
What is SIRO?
SIRO is a joint venture between the ESB and Vodafone which was set up in 2015. Its aim is to roll out a high-speed, pure-fibre broadband network around Ireland, with a focus on regional towns and cities not served by providers up until now.
SIRO currently offers speeds of up to 2Gbps but has plans to increase this to a whopping 10Gbps over the coming years.
SIRO is a wholesale provider. What this means is that it doesn't sell to consumers directly. Instead retailers use its network to sell their own services to households.
What does this new partnership add?
Virgin Media has its own high-speed network of course, which offers TV services and broadband speeds of up to 1Gbps to around 1 million households in mainly urban areas. However, today's news will see its broadband and TV services available to almost half a million more homes throughout the country.
SIRO has plans to grow its network over the coming years to cover more than 150 towns and cities, reaching around 770,000 premises and 2.1 million people. This means Virgin's services will also be available to even more households over the coming years too.
What new packages are on offer?
By joining the SIRO network, Virgin is now able to offer 2GB speeds in areas that it previously didn’t cover. As the SIRO network grows and gets higher speeds, Virgin customers should also be able to avail of this too.
Virgin has also simplified its TV packages, from two options down to just one total package called ‘Loaded TV’.
It is worth noting that home-phone is not automatically added to bundles anymore, but is still available as an add-on.
Today’s announcement is definitely great news for consumers as it brings more choice, competition and value to consumers and businesses nationwide.
At Virgin Media we are always pushing the boundaries of speed and service delivery for our customers. Today’s announcement increases our network reach to 70% of all the premises in Ireland. Our new partnership with SIRO means we will be offering our market-leading ultrafast broadband and TV services to more Irish consumers and businesses than ever before.
CEO of Virgin Media, Tony Hanway.
Where is SIRO available?
SIRO-powered broadband is currently available to almost 500,000 homes and businesses in Ireland, in regions such as Cavan, Dundalk, Westport, Castlebar, Sligo, Carrigaline, Tralee, Navan, Letterkenny, Wexford and parts of Dublin.
And as mentioned its network will expand to reach over 770,000 premises over the coming years.
SIRO is currently sold to households by retailers such as Vodafone, Sky, and Digiweb, as well as regional providers such as Westnet, Carnsore, Rocket Broadband, Airwave and Kerry Broadband. And of course we can now add Virgin Media to the list too.
Can I get SIRO?
Before you sign up with SIRO you'll need to make sure it's available in your area. To check, all you need to do is visit our broadband comparison page and enter your address or eircode. If a SIRO-powered broadband package is available in your location, it will appear in your results. Choose the plan you best like the look of and switch - we’ll take care of the rest. It’s as easy as that!
If SIRO isn’t available in your area yet, you can sign up here and as soon as your building is connectable you will be informed by SIRO.
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