LONDON, July 2 (Reuters) - Vodafone is to build afibre broadband network across Ireland, using the overhead andunderground infrastructure of the country's Electricity SupplyBoard to connect 500,000 premises in 50 towns.
The British group, the world's second largest mobileoperator, said it would invest 450 million euros ($612 million)to build a network that will offer speeds of up to 1 gigabit persecond, helping to improve connection speeds in rural Ireland.
Vodafone said subject to approval of the EuropeanCommission, it would form a 50:50 joint venture with the ESB tobegin rolling out the network in the coming months, with thefirst customers able to use the service from the beginning of2015.
The initial phase of the project is expected to be fullyrolled-out by the end of 2018.
Anne O'Leary, the chief executive of Vodafone Ireland, saidthe deal would make Ireland the first European country toroll-out nationwide fibre-to-the-building broadband onelectricity infrastructure.
Vodafone said it would open the network to other operators,meaning they could also offer superfast broadband speeds on awholesale basis. ($1 = 0.7331 Euros) (Reporting by Kate Holton, Editing by Paul Sandle)