Limerick Business Leader: Broadband riding into rural areas on crest of NuWave

Fergal Favier speaks about his company, NuWave, which is linking rural parts of County Limerick to the information superhighway:

Tell us a little about NuWave

NuWave is a broadband provider in the Munster region, covering rural parts of Limerick, North Cork, North Kerry and parts of Tipperary and Clare. We cover areas where people struggle to get acceptable levels of broadband through their phone lines, our broadband bypasses the phone line necessity and we beam the broadband to the house via an antenna which we install on the premises. We have a fully staffed office in terms of accounting, support and sales in Bruff’s old Quilty’s Building. We would employ four customer service staff, four sales staff and four full-time engineers doing servicing and installing.

​What does your role entail?

I am a company director with responsibility for the financial side of operations.

Where were you born and raised?

I am originally from Glenflesk, just outside Killarney in South Kerry. But now I am living in Kilmallock.

What is your educational background?

I went to secondary school at St Brendan’s College in Killarney. After this, I studied accountancy in University College Cork. Later on, I  achieved an Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) qualification through studying at home.

How did you get to where you are today?

I had an accountancy background, always interested in finance and things like that. But after graduating, I went travelling for a bit, and started working in the hospitality industry: bars, restaurants and the like.

I worked in Delaware and New York in the USA. Then I also worked in a few establishments in Killarney, Cork City and Kenmare. After this, I worked for a company called KBO, where I remained for five years. Then I moved to NuWave.

Why did you decide to join the company?

We set up the company four years ago when we spotted a gap in the market in rural Limerick for providing broadband packages with unlimited data. When I was working with KBO, we noticed people were looking for unlimited packages which its satellite package was not offering. The unlimited data was a huge offering to the market.

What are your goals for the next 12 months?

Having now covered nearly all of the black spot areas of Limerick, we aim to continue to expand our rural broadband network into other areas of Kerry and Cork.

Who do you admire in business?

The chairman of the Limerick Twenty Thirty company, and the founder of the Kerry Group, Denis Brosnan. He is always very conscious of rural Ireland, and I feel this is an area which can be ignored.

It’s an area that we are in, it’s where our customer base is, but he is always very conscious of it.

In business and life, are you guided by any particular motto?

‘Don't put off until tomorrow what you can do today’. It’s a motto from Benjamin Franklin.

Away from work, what are your pastimes and hobbies?

I follow GAA: my club Glenflesk were in the intermediate final in Kerry recently. I will be following Kerry and Limerick teams for this season! On top of this, I am also a member of Ballyneety Golf Club.