Ireland Gets High Speed Links Across Europe With Global Crossing Agreement

by Amanda Banks, Tax-news.com, London

21 May 2001

Ireland's Minister for Public Enterprise, Mary O’ Rourke, has announced a major e-commerce agreement which will cut high speed Internet costs with Europe and link Ireland with additional key European and US cities.

The agreement is an extension to a previous accord from 1999 between the Irish government and Global Crossing to secure high speed, competitively priced communications links to 26 European cities and to New York. Under the new extension to that agreement, the government has now secured links to 40 European centres and to Los Angeles, San Francisco, Dallas, Washington, Chicago and Boston. In addition, it has also secured high-speed links to Tokyo and Hong Kong and agreed in principle on links to Singapore.

The Minister stated: 'This is a 1000 fold enhancement in the reach of the Government’s deal and puts us squarely on to high-speed telecoms motorways to those global markets. The prices secured in the deal are extremely competitive by global standards and the connectivity is available immediately.'

Ms O'Rourke has also renegotiated the annual operating charges on the European routes. This, she said, should ensure that Ireland remains the hub of choice for Internet related and data processing businesses.

Commenting on the announcement, Mr Doug Molyneux, President of Global Crossing Ireland said: 'We are delighted to be part of the Irish Government's ongoing commitment to provide Ireland with the very best connectivity infrastructure. Irish business will experience speedier and more cost efficient accessibility through Global Crossing's seamless network as a result of today's announcement.'

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