A $1 billion investment in broadband technology being made by the telecom company, CableTel, in Ireland would be the largest inward investment ever made in infrastructure on the island, the chairman of the parent company, NTL, said yesterday.

Mr George Blumenthal, who was speaking at CableTel's launch of its £30 million Britain-Ireland fibre system, called SIRIUS, said the company would be providing "enormous connectivity" in broadband communications through its three fibre-optic links, connecting Britain and Ireland.

It will provide carrier services for other telecom companies, such as Esat and WorldCom, who have built fibre optic networks in Dublin and other centres. CableTel has signed up its first Dublin customer, Stentor Communications, for a Dublin-New York link on a 25-year lease. The company has invested heavily in the North, spending £600 million in building a complete fibre optic network to service 80 per cent of Northern homes by 2003, and is completing links between Belfast and Dublin, and Dublin and St Annes, in Lancashire. Mr Owen Lamont, managing director of CableTel Northern Ireland, indicated that the company could be a bidder for Cablelink, although it was not in a position "to show its hand". He said the financing of such an acquisition "would never be an issue".

"It is clear to see that it would be a logical fit to what we are doing in the UK," he said. With over 300,000 residential customers in Britain, CableTel claims to have 40 per cent penetration of the telephone/cable TV services market in some areas. But Mr Lamont added that, with the added investment required to upgrade the Cablelink network to digital TV network status, the ultimate price for the cable television company would be at least double its flagged sale price of £140 million.