independent.ie is reporting that 3 Ireland has won a €40m contract for the National Broadband Scheme (NBS), beating Eircom (another Irish MNO).
The Goverment-backed NDS scheme is to get broadband to the 10% of the population that can’t get Internet services i.e. those in remote rural areas. Whilst the contract should be sorted out in the next couple of weeks, rollout may actually complete sometime in 2010, or even 2011.
It’s a good win for 3 Ireland, and even more than that, a great intiative by the Irish government – those who are geographically marginalised shouldn’t be marginalised in terms of access to key services these days. So it’s smiles all-round I guess. Apart from those bidders that didn’t win the contract. They probably aren’t smiling.
[Via: independent.ie]