Telecoms tower firm Cellnex has spent €10m in Ireland during its first year in the country - installing 100 new towers around the country with 80% of these enabled with fibre infrastructure.
Spain's Cellnex acquired Irish firm Cignal just over a year ago, and has committed to spend €60m to build up to 600 new sites by 2026.
It said that while its investment programme is on track, the phasing of delivery has been slowed due to construction constraints during the pandemic, and the extension to the planning applications process introduced in April.
Cellnex said the importance of the country's communications infrastructure has come to the fore during the Covid-19 pandemic as people have had to work from home.
Citing a recent survey from Bank of Ireland, it noted that businesses cited telecommunications as the priority area for infrastructure investment, with the number of firms identifying it as a priority, up sharply since before the outbreak of Covid-19.
It also said that recent research by ComReg supports the case for further investment in wireless infrastructure, with 32% of people in rural areas finding their broadband inadequate to meet their needs.
Almost one in five mobile phone users in rural areas also said that their experience of using 3G or 4G data since Covid has deteriorated.
Colin Cunningham, Managing Director at Cellnex Ireland, said the company was very pleased with the progress it had made in Ireland over the last year.
"Over 100 communities in the country are now benefiting from the improved coverage that our investment in new site infrastructure has delivered in the past 12 months. We have nearly 500 further sites to deliver in our plans, and will continue to work with operators to provide infrastructure in new locations so that they are able to offer improved mobile service to their customers," Mr Cunningham said.
"This has never been more important or timely than now with Covid-19," he added.
Cellnex has also agreed a partnership with state forestry company Coillte that will see Cellnex invest €5m in rolling out fibre connections to the 300 Cellnex sites located on Coillte property.
Fibre connections allow for up to 10 times more data to be transmitted, faster speeds, and improved service levels.
Fibre infrastructure has already been delivered to over 30 Coillte sites so far with a further 50 sites identified for delivery over the coming months.
