eircom plc Corporate Profile

eircom (formerly Telecom Eireann) is the principal provider of fixed line and mobile telecommunications services in Ireland, offering a wide range of advanced voice, data and multimedia services. The company's consolidated revenues £1,822.6 million ($2.334 billion) for fiscal year 1999.

The company was floated on the Irish, London and New York stock exchanges on 8th July 1999 and changed its corporate identity from Telecom Eireann to eircom on 6th September 1999.  eircom's principal business is the supply of domestic and international fixed line voice and data communications services. The company has over 1.5 million telephone lines connected to its telephone network. The company expects that the number of telephone lines in Ireland will continue to increase, providing further growth opportunities. For the financial year ended 1 April 1999, the fixed line network and other services business accounted for £1,504.6 million ($1.9 billion), or 82.6% of consolidated revenues.

eircom has a technologically advanced telecommunications network with fully digital exchanges which route the telecommunications traffic.  Eircell, eircom's mobile communications subsidiary, offers a broad range of mobile communications services. As at 1 April 1999, Eircell had over 645,000 customers, representing approximately 68% of the Irish market for mobile communications services by number of customers.

Since 1992, there has been a gradual opening up of the Irish telecommunications market. The telecommunications market was completely liberalized in December 1998, including the market for fixed line voice telephony services. As a result to complete market liberalization, eircom expects that competition will continue to increase from new and existing competitors.

For a detailed company profile, see eircom.plc.
 
 

For an exhaustive detailing of the privatization of Ireland's PPT, visit : http://ballmer.uoregon.edu/robinson/j411/FCallaghan.htm ²¹
 
 

Despite permission to postpone liberalization until 2003, Ireland allowed cellular telephone competition in 1997.  Esat licensed (with backing from Telenor) Ireland implemented full fixed line liberalization in December 1998, and has high bandwidth links with the U.K. and  the U.S.  - encouraging the continued boom in the call center boiler room industry.  In 1997, equity stake in Telecom Eirean was sold to KPN (Dutch telecommunications company) and Telia (the Swedish PTT). And the residual government stake was sold in 1999, resulting in the largest single privatization in Irish commercial history. Telecom Eireann holds a stake, along with RTE the state broadcaster, in Cablelink, the largest cable operator, and Cablelink was acquired by NTL (who also holds the Northern Ireland franchise). There is a major upgrade planned for Cablelink network planned. Competitive local loop (CLEP) services are being developed to the northern network standard. Most other Irish cable companies are small and consolidation is anticipated. Television signal piracy is endemic in the culture.  Enforcement creates serious political repercussions, leading to inadequate interdiction.

                             Some Demographic Statistics:
 

                                                                  (as of 10/27/99)

Source:  Inside Cable & Telecoms Europe

Deregulation

Erkki Liikanen, Member of the European Commission
Address to Telecom '99 Conference
Geneva, 10 October 1999
 

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Last update: December 17, 1999 by ED/MM