UPC now planning to move into the mobile phone market in Ireland

ynotdu

following all the recent additions to UPC{in selected area's:(}according to todays Irish times they have their eyes now on a mobile phone service.
It is just a pity for many that they have found ways to provide new and excellant services long before the area's are upgraded.Methinks when available for the entire network,prices will go up sharply.

ADAM MAGUIRE CABLE COMPANY Chorus/NTL is in the early stages of a planned entry into the mobile phone market in Ireland. The company’s chief executive Robert Dunn said they were still at an “explorative stage” but he saw it as an important market for the company to have a presence in.
Mr Dunn also indicated that any launch would be as a mobile virtual network operator and not through the acquisition of an existing network.
Chorus/NTL – which is owned by Liberty Global International – already offers television, home broadband and phone services and has made a renewed push in recent weeks to compete with the likes of Sky.
If it wished to create a mobile virtual network operator, the company would need to enter an agreement with one of the four main mobile operators and “piggy-back” on its network, in the way that Tesco Mobile has done on the O2 network. Doing so would create the State’s first “quad-play” company, where four services are bundled together under one brand.
Other Liberty Global subsidiaries in Europe already offer quad-play packages to customers, as does British cable company Virgin Media. In Ireland, some mobile and home phone companies are also moving towards quad-play by offering TV services of their own.
O2 and Vodafone both recently launched services that allows users to watch TV on their phones for a regular fee, while Eircom is the main shareholder in the One Vision consortium which holds the digital terrestrial television licence, which may be used to complement its home and mobile offerings.

angel01

I would be interested in that

Solair

It makes perfect sense, and there will be more MVNO (Mobile Virtual Network Operators) on air.

Basically, they use an established mobile operator's infrastructure in much the same way that carrier-preselect operators can take your calls over while you retain an eircom line e.g. BT, Vodafone at Home, UTV, Talktalk, Euphony etc etc

Tesco Mobile and Eircom Mobile both fall into this category. Although, with eircom mobile it's a bit odd as eircom's also Meteor's parent company

paulm17781

Solair wrote: »

Tesco Mobile and Eircom Mobile both fall into this category. Although, with eircom mobile it's a bit odd as eircom's also Meteor's parent company

Is Eircom mobile actually an MVNO though? I know that the network is Meteor's but do they run the Eircom service as an MVNO or just repackaged Meteor? There is a difference.

I would be interesting if UPC do move into mobile, there could be some very interesting offers.

who is this

Hopefully they'll have more sense than to call it "Chorus ntl Mobile".

Doesn't exactly roll off the tongue.

Solair

who is this wrote: »

Hopefully they'll have more sense than to call it "Chorus ntl Mobile".

Doesn't exactly roll off the tongue.

New Chorus-NTL-FiberPower-Mobile, A UPC Company

Their branding is VERY confusing.

And, yes eircom mobile is an MVNO. I think they have to operate it that way, even though it's being carried on the Meteor Network, otherwise they'd be accused of unfair bundling if they offer any freebees for Meteor customers on eircom and visa vera.