Insights

Eric Boudriau joins Entegro as General Manager, Entegro US

Entegro — Wed, 11 Nov 2026 05:00:00 GMT

Entegro has appointed Eric Boudriau as General Manager of Entegro US. Based in Miami, Florida, Eric will lead the growth of Entegro's US business.

Eric brings more than 25 years of international executive leadership experience across technology, telecommunications, software and infrastructure services. Throughout his career, he has led large-scale businesses, driven commercial and operational transformations, and delivered sustained growth and profitability across North America, Europe and Latin America. Most recently, Eric served as Senior Vice President and General Manager at Ericsson, where he held full P&L responsibility for a broad North American business spanning telecommunications operators, hyperscale cloud providers, utilities and enterprise customers.

Entegro in the US

US network operators are consolidating and modernising their networks, retiring legacy estates and moving traffic onto fewer, more efficient platforms. Entegro helps them do it: designing the change, deploying and migrating services, and certifying the decommissioning of what is retired, so operators take out cost and complexity without disrupting their customers.

Entegro's US teams work on the ground in 17 states for telecoms operators, dark fiber providers and major OEMs, with engineers hands-on across 13 vendor platforms, from outside plant and fiber through to optical, Ethernet and IP transport.

The US is one of Entegro's core strategic pillars, alongside Telecoms in its home markets of Ireland and the UK, and Power.

What the role covers

Eric will lead Entegro's US business, owning client relationships and growth, and working closely with the group's operations teams in the US, Ireland and the UK to ensure the highest quality of delivery standard.

Brownfield edge data centres for incumbent operators

Entegro — Wed, 14 Oct 2026 04:30:00 GMT

Incumbent operators already own some of the assets an edge data centre needs most: urban locations, established fibre routes and substantial power connections. As copper, PSTN and legacy transmission equipment leave those buildings, a new commercial opportunity opens up.

Larger switching centres can become productive infrastructure for the next generation of digital services. Consolidating the live network releases space. Modernising power and cooling makes it usable. Modular fit-out creates capacity that operators can lease, expand and monetise.

This paper outlines how Entegro can bring its extensive experience across the network lifecycle to this exciting opportunity for value creation in incumbent telcos.

Make network retirement the start of a new business case

The opportunity combines lower legacy operating costs with recurring income from colocation, connectivity and infrastructure services. The focus is on urban centres close to enterprise customers and network demand, where existing infrastructure gives conversion a strong starting position.

For operators reviewing their property portfolios, the decision should begin before the last rack is removed. Retaining the right building and connection preserves options that may be costly to recreate. A phased edge development puts those assets to work while allowing the operator to choose its level of investment and operating involvement. We bring the engineering detail needed to make that decision with confidence.

Entegro brings the capabilities together

We understand the network that must keep working while the building changes around it. Our consolidation experience with Tier 1 operators in the United States and Ireland, combined with Entegro Energy and Kyntus operations resources, allows us to turn legacy retirement into new revenue streams.

We help operators assess the opportunity, groom and migrate live traffic, release space, modernise power, integrate modular data centre environments and support ongoing operations. One coordinated lifecycle, built around the realities of a working telecoms estate.

A smaller network creates a larger opportunity

PSTN retirement, fibre rollout and packet transport are removing layers of equipment from the exchange. Copper access can occupy large distribution frames and cable entries, fed by dozens of high-count pressurised cables. Fibre changes that physical equation.

Concentrate subscriber access

With passive optical network (PON) split ratios of 1:32 or 1:64, 6,400 subscribers can share 200 or 100 feeder fibres respectively. Smaller cables and compact optical equipment sharply reduce the infrastructure needed to serve those customers.

Figure 1 Connection paths required to serve 6,400 customers by fibre vs copper

Consolidate switching and transmission

IP voice concentrates call control into a small number of resilient core locations. Modern IP and wavelength-division multiplexing (xWDM) platforms deliver far more capacity per rack than legacy circuit switches and time-division multiplexing (TDM) equipment. Grooming traffic onto fewer systems releases racks, cabling and electrical load.

The prize is usable space, not simply empty cabinets and lower energy bills. We map live services and dependencies, migrate or cease circuits, then de-power and recover redundant equipment. Leased lines, interconnects, alarms and specialist services are dealt with explicitly. Actual space released depends on the retained network, splitter locations and resilience requirements.

This requires more than a removal schedule. A single surviving circuit can keep an entire platform powered; shared supplies and cable routes can tie apparently redundant equipment to essential services. Our legacy-network knowledge helps expose those constraints early, so the consolidation plan releases complete areas and measurable load. Each migration advances the future layout as well as the retirement programme, reducing the risk of repeated moves and avoidable rework.

Build around the assets already in place

Urban switching centres combine location, connectivity and power infrastructure that a new development must secure from scratch. Entegro turns that starting advantage into a practical conversion plan, with the live network protected throughout.

Put urban infrastructure back to work

Edge facilities bring compute and storage closer to customers. Local AI inference, video analytics, content caching and enterprise platforms benefit from shorter network paths, reduced backhaul traffic and local data handling. A distant 1 GW hyperscale campus provides scale; urban edge capacity serves workloads whose response times and operating requirements depend on proximity. In conjunction with physical assets in central urban areas, routing and platform design is also key to deliver that benefit.

Operators are already recognising the benefits of this approach. Telefónica converted former copper exchanges into edge facilities and completed 17 Spanish edge nodes by June 2026. UltraEdge’s SFR infrastructure transaction was valued at €764 million in 2024; its subsequent site revitalisation programme commits €400 million through 2028.

The strongest prospects sit close to enterprise clusters, transport hubs and regional service providers. Existing fibre routes can support cross-connects and cloud access, while secure, segregated space gives tenants an alternative to running their own facilities. We focus the engineering assessment on that customer proposition: usable capacity, access, resilience and expansion potential. The result is a facility designed around what tenants need to buy.

Turn released power capacity into productive infrastructure

Network consolidation frees electrical capacity as well as floor space. Where the existing grid capacity is retained, lower legacy demand creates headroom for a new use. Leaving that headroom idle leaves part of the site’s infrastructure investment underused. A phased edge facility can put it to work serving customers and generating recurring revenue.

Since in many markets grid capacity is constrained, an established grid connection is a strategic asset. Smaller edge projects still need sufficient local capacity; a modest requirement does not remove that dependency. Reusing an existing connection can reduce reliance on securing a new supply or reinforcement, giving suitable urban exchanges a valuable starting advantage. Assess this opportunity before surrendering connection capacity or disposing of the site. The capacity available to an edge facility must allow for the retained network, cooling, electrical losses and resilience.

Entegro Energy turns that starting advantage into a delivery plan. Our Nahanagan and ACEL capabilities bring high- and medium-voltage engineering, electrical infrastructure and energy storage. We verify the capacity that can be reused, design upgrades to ageing rectifiers, UPS systems and distribution, and phase the new load around live services. The objective is productive use of the connection already in place, matched to tenant demand and a viable operating model.

Deliver the conversion while the network stays live

Our work for major operators gives us practical knowledge of central offices, colocation environments and legacy technologies. We understand how to groom, divert and cease traffic, and how to sequence works around the services that remain. That is the critical additional discipline a live exchange demands beyond construction expertise.

Analyse and plan

We reconcile site surveys with inventory and service records, map dependencies and quantify releasable space and power. We develop the retained-network layout and conversion scope together, giving operators a costed basis for selecting the strongest urban sites.

Migrate and retire

We concentrate traffic onto surviving systems, divert or migrate services and agree cessations with their owners. Controlled change windows, rollback plans and service checks govern the release of equipment. Recovery follows verified isolation.

Modernise and install

Entegro Energy connects legacy load removal with electrical modernisation. Working with specialist delivery partners, we integrate modular rooms, containment and power or cooling assemblies into cleared space. Off-site fabrication and testing can accelerate delivery and reduce disruption inside the live building. Site-specific fire, structural, cooling and resilience requirements remain integral to the design and commissioning.

Monitor and operate

Leveraging Kyntus resources, we can provide infrastructure monitoring, alarm triage, escalation, maintenance coordination and service reporting. Building and electrical monitoring connect to local engineering response, with coverage and responsibilities agreed for each facility. This carries the conversion through into day-to-day operations.

Match the commercial model to the asset

Converting selected urban switching centres creates an opportunity for recurring revenue through shell leasing, serviced colocation or an infrastructure partnership. The value depends on local demand, achievable rental rates, occupancy and take-up, conversion and lifecycle costs, usable power and cooling capacity, energy recovery terms and the allocation of operating responsibilities, assessed against the alternative of disposal or continued retention.

Identify the next use for your urban estate

Entegro brings network migration, power engineering and operational support into one coordinated programme. Start with a portfolio assessment to identify which urban switching centres can support a viable edge business and the steps needed to get them there.

Talk to Entegro about converting your urban switching centres.

Design once, build once

Entegro — Tue, 13 Oct 2026 04:30:00 GMT

Every fibre network is built twice: once in the design and once in the ground. When the design is right, the build runs to plan. When it is not, gaps emerge as idle crews, blocked ducts, repeat road openings and network records nobody trusts.

Design is a small share of programme cost, yet it shapes what follows: the routes civils crews dig, the cables and joints they install, the capacity left for growth, and the data the operator will rely on for decades.

This paper draws on Entegro’s design work for Tier 1 and national fibre operators in Ireland and the UK to show where fibre programmes lose time and money, why design quality pays back, and how we deliver networks that get built first time.

Shape the cost before it is spent

The European Commission estimates that civil engineering accounts for up to 80% of high-speed network deployment cost. While most spend occurs during construction, many decisions that determine its scale are made during design. A missed usable duct can mean new trenching; a misplaced splitter can strand fibre; unverified site conditions can trigger changes, revised packs and repeat visits. Design is the lowest-cost stage to identify and manage these risks.

Entegro designs networks that get built

Entegro has designed more than 2.8 million homes for fibre operators in Ireland and the UK. Since 2018, our team for a leading UK full-fibre operator has scaled to more than 80 designers at peak and designed just under 2 million homes. On our contract for a Tier 1 operator’s national XGS-PON overlay in Ireland, Entegro has released more than 317,000 premises for sale across overhead, underground and multi-dwelling unit (MDU) builds. Across all Entegro programmes, construction realities shape each design decision.

Where fibre programmes lose time and money

Most problems that surface during build start earlier, in the design inputs or at the handover between design and construction. Four issues recur across operator programmes.

Records that do not match the ground

Desk-based designs can rely on inventory that no longer reflects reality: blocked or full ducts, poles that fail inspection, or changed premises. On our XGS-PON overlay contract, incomplete duct and chamber records risked redesign mid-build. Our teams surveyed routes, corrected records and resolved more than 5,000 duct blockages. Identifying constraints early allows them to be assessed before construction, reducing the risk of costly crew-level intervention.

Third-party dependencies

Wayleaves, road-opening licences, access to third-party poles and ducts, and local authority standards determine what can be built and when. For a UK full-fibre operator, we gained accreditation on Openreach’s duct and pole network and verified records before design. On our XGS-PON overlay contract, our in-house team opened more than 4,000 road-opening licences with over 20 issuing authorities. These dependencies influence route, method, cost and programme, so permissions must be planned from the outset.

Complex premises

Apartment blocks, mixed-use buildings and non-standard addresses need dedicated routing, riser access and building-owner engagement. Left late, MDUs stall connection targets. Addressed early, they become volume: Entegro have surveyed, designed, wayleaved and built more than 100,000 MDU homes for our clients.

Change and drift

When site conditions differ from the design, changes can mean revised drawings, re-approval and another visit. If verified as-built changes do not flow back into the geographic information system (GIS), records can show live routes as proposed. Both reduce crew productivity and undermine confidence in the operator’s network data.

Good design pays back across the life of the network

Design quality is both a commercial and engineering issue. It influences build cost, performance, safety, operating effort and time to revenue.

Cost

Good design utilises suitable existing ducts and poles, selects buildable routes, sizes cables and controls joint counts. Our overhead designs reuse aerial routes where fit for purpose. On our XGS-PON overlay contract, Entegro has released more than 175,000 overhead premises without the trenching a new underground route would demand.

Performance

Each passive optical network (PON) is designed within the operator’s optical budget, with margin for ageing. We assess splitter configuration, route length, splice and connector losses against the operator’s specifications, and where the budget is tight we specify stubbed devices, which replace a connector pair with a lower-loss splice. Every route is tested with an optical time-domain reflectometer (OTDR) and at PON level before handover, and image-based AI checks of installed taps and closures write results straight back to the GIS.

Health and safety

Most build hazards can be designed out before a crew reaches site. We act as Project Supervisor for the Design Process (PSDP) and Project Supervisor for the Construction Stage (PSCS), and hazards are flagged online in ArcGIS at every stage, from survey to design to build, so each team sees them before it arrives. On our XGS-PON overlay contract, more than 191,000 hazard records have been logged since 2022, including potential 63,000 power conflicts recorded by cable type, which has led to 43,000 shroud requests to ESB. Designers route around high-pressure gas and high-voltage power wherever possible. Where they can’t, ESB or Gas Networks Ireland supervision are written into the job pack before work is scheduled.

Long-term maintenance

Accessible joints, consistent labelling, clear fibre allocation and verified as-builts make repairs faster and future changes simpler. Accurate data supports upgrades and service provisioning.

Speed to revenue

Build-ready packs keep crews productive and bring premises to service sooner. On a single contract, premises Entegro released for sale rose from 38,800 in 2024 to 124,600 in 2025. Design contributes alongside survey, permitting, construction and release.

How Entegro designs networks that get built first time

Our approach links survey, design, construction feedback and records in one controlled process, keeping the design, physical network and operator data aligned.

Survey and validate

We combine field survey with quality-checked infrastructure records, so designs reflect what is in the ground, not just what is on file. Where existing ducts and poles are utilised, we verify condition and capacity before release.

Design to standard, check every release

Designs follow operator rules and passive specifications. Three quality gates cover draft quality control (QC), full QC before client review and final pack QC before construction issue. An independent engineer checks each design, supported by automated rule validation.

Issue packs crews can build from

Build packs include drawings, fibre allocation, splicing schedules, work orders and patching instructions. Permits, licences and MDU requirements are tracked so crews receive work that is technically complete and ready to build.

Close the loop with build

Field queries return through controlled revisions. We track each change’s cause, turnaround and impact, then review recurring blockers with operator and build teams to remove issues at source.

Deliver the as-built record

We treat as-built records as a deliverable. For our XGS-PON overlay client, we established a GIS operating model with more than 550,000 cable records, 250,000 duct segments and 100,000 chambers, synchronised nightly with field platforms used by more than 12 contractor organisations.

Capacity to scale

Our Comsof, QGIS, PostGIS and ArcGIS Online toolchain supports design at scale: more than 80 designers for a UK full-fibre operator, 30 for a regional UK fibre operator and 20 on a national broadband programme in Ireland, where we have designed and as-built 225,000 homes since 2020. We delivered the regional operator’s 500 km backhaul network ahead of programme. Premises Entegro has released for sale on the XGS-PON overlay grew from 78,000 to 309,000 in under three years.

Key takeaways for operators

Validate before you design. Survey and prove infrastructure early; resolve constraints before they reach construction.
Agree standards up front. Define release checks and measure first-time-right performance against a clear baseline.
Design out hazards. Flag risks at survey and design so controls are in place before crews arrive.
Treat change as feedback. Categorise field changes and remove recurring causes from future releases.
Make as-built a deliverable. Define ownership and acceptance criteria for verified operational data.
Choose a partner who builds. Field experience and design assurance improve buildability.

Build it right first time

Entegro brings survey, design, quality control and build support together in one coordinated process, proven on national rollouts in Ireland and the UK. A review of your design pipeline can identify data gaps, rework, approval delays and handover issues affecting cost and time.

Talk to Entegro about improving your next fibre design programme.

Entegro launches Entegro Energy following the acquisition of ACEL Energy

Entegro — Thu, 23 Jul 2026 04:15:00 GMT

Entegro has completed the acquisition of ACEL Energy, the Monaghan-based renewable energy specialist, and launched Entegro Energy, a new business that brings power and communications infrastructure together in one group.

The move marks a new stage for Entegro. Since 2018, the company has built its reputation designing, building and operating fibre and telecoms networks in Ireland, the UK and the US. With Entegro Energy, it can now take the same end-to-end approach to the energy infrastructure that businesses, public bodies and utilities increasingly depend on.

About ACEL Energy

ACEL Energy was founded in 2022 by Barry Sherry and Declan McDonald, who both join Entegro. The company designs and delivers solar PV, battery energy storage systems (BESS) and demand management for commercial, industrial and public sector clients. Its projects include a 1.2MW ground-mounted solar PV system with Shannon Airport Group, and it has more than 200MW of projects in its pipeline.

One partner, from generation to grid

The deal follows Entegro's acquisition of a majority stake in Nahanagan Electrical Engineering Services in January 2026. Based in Enniscorthy, Nahanagan is a high-voltage specialist that supplies, installs, commissions, operates and maintains HV and MV systems for more than 100 clients, in sectors such as renewables, pharmaceuticals, transport and manufacturing. Entegro Energy brings ACEL's renewable expertise together with Nahanagan's high- and medium-voltage engineering. Together, they cover the full life of an energy project:

Generation: design and installation of solar PV
Storage: battery energy storage systems
Grid: high- and medium-voltage engineering, through to grid connection and energisation
Operation: ongoing maintenance and 24/7 fault response for HV sites

For clients, this means one partner responsible for the whole project, rather than several contractors working separately.

100 new jobs

The move supports Entegro's growth as a multi-utility infrastructure business. Entegro plans to create 100 new jobs, growing its team from around 200 to nearly 300 people.

John Rooney, Group CEO of Entegro, welcomed the ACEL team and described the deal as “another milestone for Entegro as we continue to build a multi-utility business” across telecoms, power and infrastructure.

Barry Sherry, CEO of ACEL Energy, said he and Declan McDonald built ACEL on engineering-led renewable generation and storage, and that “joining Entegro lets us do that at a scale we could not reach alone.”

Shannon Airport solar farm

Entegro — Fri, 28 Nov 2025 05:15:00 GMT

Shannon Airport Group is generating a large share of its own electricity on site, thanks to a 1.2MW ground-mounted solar PV system designed, installed and commissioned by ACEL Energy, now part of Entegro Energy.

The solar farm covers 5.5 acres of airport land and uses more than 2,700 bifacial panels, which capture light on both sides. It supplies around 20% of the airport's annual electricity, and is the first solar farm on an airfield in Ireland.

Delivered from design to commissioning

The €3.6 million project, supported by a €1.5 million government grant, was delivered by ACEL from design and procurement through to installation and commissioning.

Why on-site solar matters

Airports, like hospitals, factories and data centres, use large amounts of electricity around the clock. Generating power on site lowers their energy costs, cuts emissions and makes them less exposed to changes in grid prices. With unused land close to where the power is needed, a ground-mounted solar farm is one of the most direct ways to do it.

What Entegro Energy brings

Projects like Shannon show what Entegro Energy now offers large energy users: renewable generation, battery storage and high-voltage engineering, delivered by one partner from design through to grid connection.

Ray O’Driscoll of The Shannon Airport Group has described the solar farm as “a game changer” for the airport, and a big step towards its target of cutting emissions by 51% by 2030.