Virgin Media Ireland in talks to own 3 Ireland

dublinman1990

The Irish Times have reported this morning that they're in talks after posting a takeover bid for 3 Ireland worth an estimated €1.5 billion.

https://www.irishtimes.com/business/2026/01/20/virgin-media-owner-said-to-be-in-talks-to-buy-three-ireland-for-up-to-15bn/

CK Hutchison, who are the owners of 3 here, have gradually downsized their telecoms business in the EU amid struggling growth within the telecoms sector for the past while. They also posted losses for 3 Ireland's balance sheet for the financial year in 2024.

It says in the article that the proposed bid from Virgin Media Ireland to buy 3 Ireland's business will have very few issues with competition laws here and in the EU.

If a takeover deal does come to fruition from Virgin to buy 3 Ireland over the course of these takeover talks. How long will that deal take to get full clearance with the competition authorities like the CCPC & the EC?

KildareP

Christ I hope not, Liberty Global are an absolutely awful company. Looking at how the VMO2 merger is going in the UK this certainly isn't going to be for the benefit of the Irish consumer.

PixelCrafter

Oh FFS I'm in contract with them at the moment. I'd rather not be bolted to Virgin Media tbh.

dublinman1990

Yeah. I agree with both of you here. I only just became a 3 Ireland customer for 5 years yesterday morning.

I was left f*cking gobsmacked when I read the IT article about this bid from Virgin Media to takeover 3 on my phone this evening. I'm not happy with the potential likelihood of paying higher bills to Virgin get the green light to own 3 in the near future. I use Saorview & Free to Air Satellite for the TV reception since November 2012. The Satellite TV installer business that installed the dish & aerial for the house in Dublin is also a 3rd party agent for Sky.

I'm currently on the prepay contract with 3 for both phone & broadband for those 5 years. I did like the potential prospect of using the 3 Ireland's 5G billpay broadband within the last year or two. It will be a shame to lose out on that option in the future if their broadband gets taken over by Virgin.

When looking at that situation at the moment; it doesn't make much sense to me to do a wholesale switch from using Satellite TV over to using the current online streamed TV boxes with Virgin. I would be coming away with the impression here that Sky would offer better value to me at this point rather than going to Virgin.

However; when people online talk about 3rd party agent fees when paying for Sky here in Ireland. Which is the more expensive option for me out there when paying for the TV & broadband subscriptions today. Is it paying for the Sky TV & broadband with the 3rd party Sky agents route or is it with paying more for less TV channels with broadband on Virgin Media?

PixelCrafter

I doubt you'd lose out on the option tbh - 3 Ireland's products would just be Virgin mobile, or something else depending on what they go. Liberty Global is generally bonkers with branding and seems to rebrand everything once in a while for no reason.

There was an assumption a few years ago that Vodafone Ireland would buy Virgin Media - things change!

I'd rather have seen 3 Ireland land in one of the bigger European mobile operators' portfolios. Liberty's portfolio's quite narrow and very cable focused. They have that Virgin-O2 joint venture with Telefonica in the UK, and Ziggo mobile in NL is just an MVNO I think.

Grab All Association

People have short memories

Three was an awful company when launched here in 2005

Call centres in Mumbai, network outages constantly and dont get me started on the National Broadband Scheme.

Should never have been allowed to buy o2.

bk

This was likely the best outcome from the options available.

It is certainly better then Eir or Vodafone bought them, which would have meant we would go from having three mobile phone networks, down to just two. At least with Virgin Media it means three mobile networks remain.

It also means we wouldn’t see the merger of Vodafone and Virgin Media that was previously rumoured, which would have reduced the number of wired broadband networks from 3 to 2.

Now instead we will have 3 full service telco providers:

• Eir with mobile network and a FTTH network
• Vodafone with mobile network and 50% FTTH network with Siro
• Virgin media with mobile network and cable/FTTH network

There should remain pretty healthy competition between the three companies above.

The only other possible buyer might have been Sky, but Sky don’t seem to be really interested in owning a network

KildareP

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124166263#Comment_124166263

They're nothing today compared to what they were then, though, for the better.

They moved customer care operations for the merged brands into O2's base in Limerick, pumped hundreds of millions into the network and generally kept the knowledge and best bits of O2's operations and promptly scrapped a lot of what made the original Three brand so awful.

Whereas when you look at the Virgin/O2 joint venture in the UK, it's all cost-cutting to beat the band since it went through - mass layoffs, outsourcing, offshoring, cutbacks and price rises.

bk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124166578#Comment_124166578

in fairness to Liberty Global, when they entered the Irish market buying NTL, they also invested hundreds of millions in building out their cable broadband network and offered much higher speeds and lower prices then Eircom with their rubbish ADSL network back in the day. They totally forced Eircom to compete.

And more recently they have been heavily investing in their FTTH network.

Of course unfortunately there will be cost cutting, they will likely merge operations.

However combined they should be a much stronger competitor to Eir and Vodafone. The problem they both had is they were basically only half a telco company. Three had no wired broadband network, while VM had only a MVNO with a tiny market share. They were then both competing with all in one providers. Together they should be able to provide a more complete competitive package.

BrenFromCarlow

When mobile networks were first implemented here, 2G I suppose, I recall it being explained that the end customer would not be limited to aerials of their own network, but would be able to 'roam' onto aerials of other networks where required. It seems a shame that we've stepped back from this to require each provider to build out entirely separate physical networks.

pizzahead77

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124166747#Comment_124166747

Three do resell fibre broadband but to business customers only

zg3409

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124166882#Comment_124166882

I believe in very rural areas they share infrastructure but it shows up on your phone as separate networks. They have contracted out a lot of the site management to third parties who manage sites for multiple networks.

beachhead

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124166578#Comment_124166578

Mumbai moved to McLaughlin Park.Guess where that is

beachhead

Nobody panic for at least a year

feargantae

I'm grateful they shouldn't be able to touch our old €20 legacy top up plans! I mean there's still people with free O2 to O2 call plans going around so they shouldn't be able to at least