John Mulligan, of the Irish Independent, has news on 3 Ireland awarding BT a €44m contract “to expand its network infrastructure and roll out faster mobile broadband services.” The article reports that 3 hope it will “significantly boost” the number of mobile broadband customers (currently 80,000) “making it the leading provider of mobile broadband services in [Ireland].”

Mulligan also writes that Robert Finnegan, managing director of 3 Ireland, “believes that mobile broadband rather than fixed-line internet could eventually become the consumer standard.” BT are due to finish their technological support by the end of 2008, enabling 3 to deliver the industry standard speeds of up to 7.2Mbps. 3 also hope to boost the number of mobile cell mast locations from 70 to a whopping 770 within the next three years.

Read the full article here