EMR signs €4.5m deal with RTE
Radio communications firm EMR builds largest microwave project for RTE, writes Dick O’Brien.
Meath-based radio communications company EMR Integrated Solutions has finalised a €4.5million deal with RTE Transmission Network (RTENL), which saw it build a national digital microwave network.
The network will form a core part of the infrastructure needed for the new Digital Terrestrial Television service.
EMR constructed a system that provides a high-speed link between 24 radio and television broadcast sites at high points around the country and studios in Dublin, Cork, Limerick, Sligo and Donegal. The network will also provide the backbone for transmission of all existing RTE television and radio channels, in addition to broadcasts from commercial stations. Mark Quinn, EMR managing director, said the deal was one of the most significant the firm had won to date, since it had previously been winning deals of between €100,000 and €1 million.
‘‘It was probably the biggest single microwave project to go to market in 2008 and we were competing with the multinationals for it,” he said.
The company specialises in solutions for utility and infrastructure providers, and has clients in the telecoms, water and defence sectors.
Winning business from RTENL has opened a number of doors for the company, and it has won a number of significant new contracts which it expects to be able to make public over the next two months.
‘‘We are now seen as one of the serious players,” Quinn said. EMR, which employs 22 people from its base in Dunboyne, has traditionally operated in the Irish market, but has recently begun to get business in the North and has prequalified for a number of projects in Britain and continental Europe.
‘‘The recession is forcing utility organisations to find cost-effective ways of delivering bandwidth to their sites,” Quinn said, explaining why business had expanded during the current climate.
EMR has been in business for 20 years. It racked up turnover of €6million last year, and has been on a steady growth path in recent times.
‘‘I bought out my business partner five or six years ago, and we’ve gone from turnover of €1 million at that point to €6 million last year,” Quinn said.
Turnover this year was likely to be down somewhat, given the size of the RTENL, but Quinn said the firm was still on a trajectory where it was targeting growth in the region of 30 per cent every year.
