Eircom is to offer superfast broadband to 66 communities around the country.

The company starts work next month in Cavan town, Kilkenny city and Letterkenny town with construction set to take six months.

This would see the roll out of fibre-based services to 1.6 million addresses in Ireland.

Eircom says the speed of one gigabit per second would mean downloading a film would take less than a minute.

However, Eircom says they will only connect customers as demand for the new service emerges.

The Communications Minister Alex White has welcomed the development, saying " The commercial sector is showing clear leadership in delivering quality services to customers. The government intends to follow this with an ambitious investment in rural Ireland, ensuring that everyone has high speed, high quality broadband regardless of where they are located."

In a separate development yesterday, the ESB secured approval from the European Commission to proceed with a joint venture between the ESB and Vodafone Ireland.

Earlier this year, the ESB and Vodafone announced their intention to enter a joint partnership in which the ESB distribution network will be used to deliver wholesale fibre services to homes.

It is understood the joint venture will deliver these services to 50 towns in 26 counties, with rollout beginning in 2015.