• 440km multi-duct backbone links Dublin, Galway, Limerick and Cork.
  • Open-access duct model lets multiple carriers share physical infrastructure.

What happened

enet has launched Phase 1 of a 440km multi-duct fibre corridor linking Dublin, Galway, Limerick and Cork into a continuous national backbone. The route runs through Athlone and Shannon, which act as intermediate connectivity hubs, helping to unify western and southern traffic flows into a single intercity transmission system.

Along the corridor, interconnection points are positioned in Dublin, Athlone, Galway, Shannon and Limerick, enabling high-capacity traffic exchange between regional networks. The infrastructure integrates fibre deployment with an open-access duct model, allowing operators either to install their own fibre or access dark fibre capacity depending on operational requirements.

The system is engineered for long-distance optical transmission, maintaining low latency across the full corridor with regeneration points that preserve signal integrity.

enet frames the corridor as Phase 1 of a broader national ring strategy, positioning it as part of long-term backbone expansion across Ireland. As an open-access wholesale operator, enet already manages extensive fibre and metropolitan area network assets, and this corridor extends that infrastructure into a more integrated intercity backbone.

Why it’s important

The corridor strengthens Ireland’s intercity backbone resilience by introducing additional routing diversity between major urban centres. This reduces dependency on single-path infrastructure and improves continuity of data traffic across domestic networks.

The design also supports rising demand from cloud services and data centre expansion, where scalable and low-latency intercity connectivity has become increasingly critical. By expanding wholesale backbone capacity, operators gain more flexible access to transport infrastructure for high-volume data flows.

At a broader level, the open-access model improves infrastructure efficiency by allowing multiple carriers to share physical ducts rather than duplicating civil works. This not only accelerates deployment cycles but also enhances utilisation of national fibre assets.

As international subsea cable capacity continues to grow around Ireland’s coastline, robust inland connectivity becomes increasingly important for distributing global traffic. The corridor therefore plays a structural role in linking international landing points with domestic digital infrastructure.

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