Virgin Media Ireland has launched a wifi service for Irish businesses, which it says will boost local economies and benefit both companies and their customers.
Virgin Wifi was unveiled at the Irish Maritime Festival in Drogheda, an event sponsored by the cable company.
Businesses can access “fast, reliable wifi” for their businesses from €30 a month, Virgin said. It will tell companies that offering their customers free wifi will encourage more people to come through their doors as well as more repeat custom.
It will promote the service as “an opportunity to get closer to your customers and to get to know them better” through customer registrations at the sign-in stage, while wifi can also help drive traffic to company websites, it says.
Virgin Media Ireland's vice-president of commercial Paul Farrell said Virgin's network currently carried more than half of all public wifi traffic in Ireland, or about 2.5 million user sessions a month.
“Digital technologies are part of our everyday lives with the digital economy worth about 6 per cent of Ireland’s GDP, online spending by Irish consumers set to double in value in the next five years and the view that by 2020 we will be spending 24 hours a week watching content online,” Mr Farrell said.
These trends are prompting exponential growth in demand for wifi.
The wifi launch follows Virgin’s recent introduction of a fibre-rich network for businesses in towns including Drogheda, Dundalk, Ballina, Enniscorthy, Gorey, Tullamore, Kildare and Greystones.
