Ireland remains in Europe's bottom four for broadband

bealtine

ECTA preview...

Ireland remains in Europe's bottom four for broadband
Maxim Kelly

EUROPEAN figures to be published next week will show that Ireland remains in the bottom four countries for broadband performance despite improving take-up among households. The figures will be released in a week when Eircom publishes its half-year results.

The latest European Competitive Telecommunications Association (ECTA) scorecard will show Ireland improving its performance after significant investment, but the Republic still lags behind many European countries.

The poor figures may re-ignite the debate about the level of investment made in broadband by Eircom, which is now owned by Australian investment fund Babcock & Brown. The telco is expected to reveal solid results, with EBITA (earnings before interest, tax and amortisation) growth between 2% and 6%, but analysts will be looking for evidence that an increasingly competitive broadband market has affected Eircom's retail division.

"There may be pressure on its sales and profit margin because proper LLU [local loop unbundling] means others have brought competitive retail prime bundles to market in the last year, and there was a strong broadband take-up across Ireland last summer which is not normally the best season for telco sales, " said an industry source.

However wholesale trade to its retail competitors which are also wholesale customers could average this out.

Eircom would not talk figures ahead of results, but a spokesman said the firm was seeing little change in LLU figures since new inter- and intra-migration rules . . .

seamless changing of operators for customers . . . came into force.

Eircom is expected to report it retains around 60% of the DSL broadband market.

The preliminary ECTA stats, seen by the Sunday Tribune, show Ireland crept up the rankings last year, with broadband penetration growing 17% in the nine months to September. This improvement, the third-strongest of the 15 EU states regularly reviewed by ECTA, bumps Ireland up from 14th place to 12th. Ireland has a 16.8% penetration rate, still one-third below the EU15 average of 24.5%, and still less than half of leader Denmark's 34.5% penetration rate.

The latest ECTA scorecard does not include figures from mobile phone companies, so the launch of 3G mobile broadband products from Vodafone, O2 and 3 Ireland last year should also bump up the figures if ECTA begins counting them in future surveys.

Sponge Bob

Technologically sophisticated Europeans know that 3G BB is an infill technology and not real BB . Its what you use when you are stuck...like an alleyway on the way to Croker if you will .

Someone really must tell that consummate techno-bumpkin Eamonn Ryan never to talk in public about it if we are to attract any FDA .....errrr ohhh umm OOoops !