It's A Two Horse Race For Meteor

Mr_Man

According to RTE it is now a two horse race between Smart and Eircom. Eircom would seem to be in pole position, but at what cost? Given the cash they'll have to raise to pay for this company, pressure on funds is going to intensify and could result in even fewer funds going into the infrastructure.

M

bringitdown

Meteor would loose me as a customer if Eircom won.

dahamsta

bringitdown wrote:

Meteor would loose me as a customer if Eircom won.

They'd bring bogloads on to replace you via the landlines though, sadly. But Smart need this by all accounts.

Credit where credit is due, Meteor have played a cracking game with the interested parties over the past couple years. I reckon they deserve a tidy profit for the way they've played them all against each other.

adam

oscarBravo

bringitdown wrote:

Meteor would loose me as a customer if Eircom won.

It would put me in a difficult position too. Meteor coverage is about perfect at my house, whereas Vodafone is crapola. I can't imagine anything that would entice me to switch to O2 at the moment.

All in all, I'm happy as a Meteor customer - will I be forced to swallow my pride and stay on as an Eircell (!) customer?

Sarsfield

Guys, guys, it's just business.

Feel free to hate Eircom, but if they offer the product that's best for you would you still drop them just because they're Eircom? To be honest, that would be stupid! Bear in mind they're all the same (businesses). Eircom is just bigger therefore can throw its weight around more.

oscarBravo

Speaking only for myself, it stopped being "just business" a long time ago. Now it's a question of principle.

That's not to say I'd cut off my nose to spite my face, but it would hurt to give any more money to Eircom.

zuma

If eircom get Meteor then they will milk it for all its worth!!!

Personially I would prefer those who use mobiles to pay a load, if it means eircom leave the landline infrastructure alone...or actually improve it with some of the profits from meteor.

Mobile operations are INCREDIBLE profitable.

If Smart get meteor then they will have a nice little profit making machine and might invest it into the rest of their growing business.....how does 8Mbit ADSL2+ sound???

Blaster99

I don't think it matters who buys Meteor. It's just business, they will try to make as much money as possible and that's that. I suppose Meteor in Eircom's hands would have easier access to backhaul so it might be cheaper to roll out better coverage or 3G.

viking

As I mentioned in another thread, the SBP reported the following:

<snip>Shares in Eircom have dropped in recent weeks amid concerns that it will pay too much for Meteor. The spotlight has fallen on how Eircom will finance the acquisition if it were to outbid Smart Telecom [and Denis O'Brien] in the auction.

...

Brid White, an analyst at Merrion Stockbrokers, said Eircom had only €342 million in wriggle room for it not to breach the most restrictive debt covenants with its bond holders.

Consequently, if it were to pay as much as €400 million to €450 million for Meteor, Eircom would need to raise money from other sources to finance the acquisition.

Eircom would also need to spend €47million in spectrum and administrative costs in the first year to regulator ComReg if it were to bid for a 3G phone licence in the coming weeks.</snip>

If we are down to sealed envelopes between Smart and Eircom, then Eircom are hoping for the sub 400m mark and hoping that they still outbid Smart. Otherwise its external investors time.

Don't forget that Western Wireless have said that if the price ain't right then they won't be selling, so Meteor may not even be sold yet...

zuma

viking wrote:

As I mentioned in another thread, the SBP reported the following:


If we are down to sealed envelopes between Smart and Eircom, then Eircom are hoping for the sub 400m mark and hoping that they still outbid Smart. Otherwise its external investors time.

Don't forget that Western Wireless have said that if the price ain't right then they won't be selling, so Meteor may not even be sold yet...

I think Smart have enough for a €350-€400 purchase...but it appears Meteor is going into the €430-€440 territory!!!
Eircom will win the bidding process and have a VERY large hole in their finances!!!
What are the chance that eircom will raise line rental to the magic figure of €30 sometime this year?....twice the EU average!!!

Mr_Man

Eircom

cannot raise line rental by more than then CPI this year; Comreg finally broke it out into a seperate 'basket' after the last gouging of the Irish Consumer caused a massive uproar.

M.

zuma

If there was to be a rise this year...what would we, the consumer, end up paying each month???

How do Ameiricans,eircom is basically a US company now, manage line rental??
Also...shouldnt costs be going down in eircom as technology improves and such things???

damien

zuma wrote:

What are the chance that eircom will raise line rental to the magic figure of €30 sometime this year?....twice the EU average!!!

I think there's more chance of eircom making me CEO than that happening. The DCMNR and ComReg are still hurting after the line rental increases. If they were to both allow increases in the next two years they will be destroyed by the media and certain consumer groups

Anyways, there's an election almost around the corner. Do you think Dempsey would get an easy time known as the man that increased the highest line rental in the EU to a higher amount again?

With that in mind eircom will need to find the money for their loans from somewhere, which may mean even less investment in their copper infrastructure. Lucky the USO they have isn't very restrictive when it comes to screwing the consumer over so they have had an easy ride on the copper side of things, I doubt they'll have the same thing on the mobile side.

I'm sure too that o2 and Vodafone will use all their regulatory and legal muscle to make sure that the network termination costs eircom charge the newly accquired meteor and viceversa won't give eircom/meteor any advantages, so no money there.

Oh it will be fun times ahead. Anyone think the Competition Authority will get involved?

damien

zuma wrote:

shouldnt costs be going down in eircom as technology improves and such things???

Indeed, as well as making the eircom organisation more efficient through better work practices and more procedures. They've been very slow to bring that about.

JTMan

Smart have bid sub €400 apparently so Meteor seems there for Eircom to take for around €440 M.

dahamsta wrote:

They'd bring bogloads on to replace you via the landlines though, sadly. .

When BT re-entered the mobile market it offered packages that tied your landline bill to the mobile bill. The packages failed to attract masses of customers. Customers did not want the bills tied. However, when BT Mobile started heavly discounting the existing operators and offered mass market products it succeeded.

Land Line + Mobile operation does not equal lots of extra customers.

jesus_thats_gre

Fungus wrote:

When BT re-entered the mobile market it offered packages that tied your landline bill to the mobile bill. The packages failed to attract masses of customers. Customers did not want the bills tied. However, when BT Mobile started heavly discounting the existing operators and offered mass market products it succeeded.

Land Line + Mobile operation does not equal lots of extra customers.

BT did this as an MVNO though. With Vodafone I think? Eircom seem to be doing everything in their power to avoid this situation here..

Eircom owning the infrastructure may be a very different kettle of fish..

zuma

But dont Meteor piggyback on O^2's infrastructure anyway to reach rural/low population density areas???

dahamsta

jesus_thats_gre wrote:

BT did this as an MVNO though. With Vodafone I think? Eircom seem to be doing everything in their power to avoid this situation here.

That and Eircom have a much larger landline market - almost all of it of course - which they'll try to target via the bill. (Whether they should be allowed do that is another matter entirely, but they are still doing it.) And if Eircom is good at anything, in a relentless, ruthless way, it's marketing. The Company Formerly Known As Esat is absolutely rubbish at it.

zuma wrote:

But dont Meteor piggyback on O^2's infrastructure anyway to reach rural/low population density areas???

I was under the impression that they were still building out, at a prety rapid rate, in an effort to negate this as soon as possible.

adam

SparkyLarks

Ther are a lot of buisnesses(esp the larger ones) that wouldn't sign up to Metor, or Smart.
If eircom win the bid they will be looking at getting existing Land line customers to transfer their mobiles. The'll especially be targeting large accounts. Buisness that have hundred of mobiles like ESB Bord Gais, Kerry Group......

Those same buisness won't transfer to a Smart Owned Meteor.
So there is a lot more money to be made for Eircom, than ther is for Smart, so from a buisness point of view Eircom can afford to pay a higher proces for Meteor.

Hopefully Eircom arriving as the third operator will help competition. They will be much more powerful than Meteor, in it's current form or Smart owned. vodafone and O2 will need to watch backs and that will hopefully drive prices down.

An maybe just maybe, being the smaller operator will change Eircoms perspective on competition and such like.

Solair

I can't really see how Smart could afford Meteor, they're too small and already stretched beyond stretched trying to rollout their landline/broadband stuff.

Meteor's a small but extremely successful mobile operator at this stage and is giving the world's largest mobile operator, Vodafone, and O2 (one of europe's largest players) a serious run for their money.

Alltel (who bought Western Wireless) are only off loading Meteor as it doesn't quite fit into their US-focused strategy and they would use the cash they earn from the sale in their home market. However, Meteor is their most boyant overseas asset and they're not going to just sell for the sake of selling it.

They've a few overseas GSM networks
European Union:
Tal (Iceland) (sold and merged with Icelandsimi now Og Vodafone)
Tele.ring (Austria) not a huge player. (#4 player, and also for sale)
Meteor (Ireland) (#3 player for sale)
Vega (Slovinia)
The US mobile phone company Western Wireless has accused the Slovenian government of failing to ensure a free market in the telecommunications sector. It is suing the state for 174 million euros in compensation.
After 4 years in the market Vega only managed to grab 2% of customers. The state owned player has >80% and Slovenia's mobile penitration's pretty high approaching Western European levels circa 90%.




Eastern Europe:
MagtiCom GSM (Georgia) - Small

Americas:
Viva GSM (Bolivia) - A county where 6% of the population have a phone.
ComCEL (Haiti) Not exactly a stable part of the world! 1% of the pop. have a phone of any type, the lowest teledensity in the western hemisphere.

Africa:
Westel (Ghana) - Mixture of cellular, paging, long distance, and payphones and Wireless Local Loop.
Cora (Ivory Coast/Cote d'Ivoire) - Network was temporarily shut down due to political conditions. Their HQ was raided and equipment destroyed.


As you can see they've a lot of diverse and non-integrated investments with very few synergies.
Even the european networks are too far away from eachother and don't even have any roaming partnerships etc.

Western Wireless had a strategy to invest in smaller and cheaper to enter European markets and into developing markets where mobile services could take off replacing the need for landlines e.g. in their south american / african markets.

eircom / meteor would be a good fit. It won't make much of a difference to meteor's position they'll still have to be ruthlessly compeditive. It just means that they'll have marketing and infrastructural synergies that will give them a much better edge in the market.






I doubt eircom would even change the name. Even the colour scheme fits! You'd probabally just see an eircom sooshball added to the Meteor logo.
Get rid of the "o" in Meteor and pop in a sooshball.
and stick eircom on top.. and voila you've a mobile division that everyone already recognises.

oscarBravo

yuck.

zuma wrote:

But dont Meteor piggyback on O^2's infrastructure anyway to reach rural/low population density areas???

Yes, but that's a roaming agreement rather than an MVNO situation.

dahamsta wrote:

I was under the impression that they were still building out, at a prety rapid rate, in an effort to negate this as soon as possible.

That's the impression I get in daily use: I'm spending less and less time on O2.

dahamsta

I should add that it can work both ways on Meteor's constant courting of buyers for the last few years: I would've switched to them ages ago, but I didn't want to sign up to a company that's in constant limbo.

adam

Solair

Well as long as they keep providing me with good service at considerably less than the other 2 operators I'm sticking with them. I really don't care who owns them. I mean, do many people know they're owned by AllTel ? Doubt it!

jesus_thats_gre

zuma wrote:

But dont Meteor piggyback on O^2's infrastructure anyway to reach rural/low population density areas???

They use 02's network in places they do not offer coverage themselves. However, they are increasing their coverage foot print all the time and will inevitably not have to depend on O2 at all..

Secondly, if Eircom do take them over, Eircom are in a far far stronger position to increase Meteors coverage to near 100% extremely quickly.. They own that much property etc already.

SkepticOne

Eircom could use create an MVNO to give the impression of 100% coverage overnight. It would not appear to users as a different network. They would not need to bother with investing much. They could still use the Metior infrastructure in the areas where it makes sense.

JTMan

Virgin Mobile have joined Smart Telecom in their bid for Meteor. This is getting very interesting ...

Apparently the winner between Eircom and Smart/Virgin will be announced on July 29th.

dahamsta

Will the new network be called Smart Virgins?



(Dahamsta is a bit of a Richard Branson fan, so he's decided to put aside his Smart Skepticism and root for Smart Virgins. Go Smart Virgins! Oh, and oscarBravo? I find that photoshop utterly offensive.)

adam

JTMan

LOL

Well it is the Sunday Business Post who are going on about Virgin joining Smart to bid for Meteor.

However, the Sunday Times today says it is all over ... Eircom have won the race for Meteor for €410 Million ( http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2095-1696908,00.html ). This is the same paper who last week said that Eircom had bid €440 Million.

So who is right the SBP or the Sunday Times?

Sponge Bob

its ongoing all this week , meteor is in play at $500m or higher (dollars yes)

eircomtribunal

Here's the link to the Sunday business post meteor/smart/virgin article:http://www.sbpost.ie/post/pages/p/story.aspx-qqqt=MARKETS-qqqs=themarket-qqqid=6429-qqqx=1.asp

P.

oscarBravo

dahamsta wrote:

Oh, and oscarBravo? I find that photoshop utterly offensive.

GIMP, acksherly. And I'm still scrubbing my hard drive with soap...

zuma

Eircom have WON!!!

bringitdown

zuma: link - who announced it?

dahamsta

http://www.rte.ie/business/2005/0721/meteor.html

bringitdown

arse bandits - well, my no eircom policy will have to be put under examination, I'll see what the muppets do before I leap off to another operator.

Solair

Well, just like BT are the good guys in the Irish market while being the bad guys in the UK fixed line market. Eircom will be the small player in the Irish mobile market and will have to be innovative and price cutting to survive.

Meteor's management team are pretty good and I can't see anything drastic happening at the company itself. They're not in a monopolist's position and never will be in the mobile market.

The eircom link will give Meteor a bit more cred' in the corporate sector and hopefully it might gain more than 10% of the market before too long.

I'd be more concerned that eircom/meteor does some kind of a decent deal on roaming. At present Meteor's roaming for prepaid customers is a bit of a mess. i.e. you have to have all of your calls charged to your credit card while abroad.

It would make sense for the small independent operators that are still left in Europe to set up another alliance, something along the lines of O2's "Starmap Alliance".

Eircom/Meteor will still be an absolutely tiny mobile operator by international standards, yet they'll be quite capable of putting it up to Vodafone in their home market.

It'll certainly be interesting to see what happens anyway.... I think Irish mobile market's just about to see a major dose of new blood very soon. We've 3 launching very shortly, this eircom-meteor thing and the possibility of a number of VMO (Virtual Mobile Operators) coming on stream. E.g. Smart/Virgin may still go ahead with a network piggybacking on either O2 or Vodafone. Likewise, we could see T-Mobile, Orange or any of the big names come in as VMOs... Will be good to see a bit more competition!

Shame it's not also the scenario in the broadband realm!

dahamsta

Solair wrote:

Well, just like BT are the good guys in the Irish market...

Least worst. Possibly. Maybe. Although unlikely when you get right down to it.

adam

paulm17781

Solair wrote:

I'd be more concerned that eircom/meteor does some kind of a decent deal on roaming. At present Meteor's roaming for prepaid customers is a bit of a mess. i.e. you have to have all of your calls charged to your credit card while abroad.

No you don't. You have to register a credit card with them and top up by 60 euro. I don't know why the need for the credit card but the money comes out of your credit.

You don't have to do this for the UK anymore but it is extremely expensive to use a meteor phone over there.

eircomtribunal

Frank Fitzgibbon raised some questions with regards to Eircom taking Meteor for this sort of price in this article in the Sunday Times of 17th July:

And Finally . . . Shareholders will pay if Eircom has overplayed its hand
edited by frank fitzgibbon

WE BET there weren’t too many smiles at Eircom’s headquarters last Thursday when the word went round that Denis O’Brien had withdrawn from the race for Meteor, the country’s third-placed mobile-phone operator.

With O’Brien deciding to exit the stage, leaving Smart Telecom as the only other possible buyer, Eircom is in pole position to acquire the business and launch its return to the mobile sector.

What should be good news is tarnished by the knowledge that O’Brien’s entry into the race succeeded in bidding up the price to such an extent that Eircom has achieved its strategic objective at a grossly inflated cost.

The threat of competition from O’Brien saw Eircom offer about €410m for Meteor. Eircom’s top brass may have to go into a dark room and lie down for a while when they consider that 18 months ago they could have picked up the business for €200m. They gave it a miss on the basis that it was too expensive.

This latest joust between old corporate Ireland, as represented by the Eircom chairman, Sir Tony O’Reilly, and the new corporate Ireland dominated by O’Brien’s generation looks like a win for the young pretender.

O’Brien lost out to O’Reilly in the battle to acquire Eircom in 2001, but he has since honed his poker skills and appears to have forced his corporate opponent into overplaying its hand. Like a gambler who throws the keys of his car on the table, Eircom will now have to turn to its shareholders to raise the funds required to complete the deal — encouraging analysts to take a closer look at the company’s ability to service its current level of dividend payments.

The bill for Eircom’s shareholders won’t end with Meteor either. Eircom is favourite to win the final 3G licence on offer from the government. The cost of rolling out that service, even with Meteor’s mobile network, could see Eircom’s shareholders tapped up for even more than the initial estimates of €250m.

P.

De Rebel

Its my belief that eircom were prepared to buy meteor at almost any price for 2 reasons. (1) They need a business with sky high gross margin very very badly in order to dilute their appalling overheads and fixed costs. (2) They see it as a massive opportunity to leverage their corporate customer base. Nolan spent a large part of the last 12 months focussed on closing this deal on O'Reilly's specific instructions (i.e. the CEO was doing the chairman's job)

It is my belief that O'Brien knew this, and entered into the race in a tongue in cheek; basically a pisstake so that he could wax lyrical at dinner parties about how his involvement ended up costing Sir Anthony an extra €100M or so.

Eircom have got what they wanted, and may even pull a last minute stunt in an attempt to bring the ultimate cost back down.

They stand to make a lot of money from this deal. Vodafone and O2 have been taking the mick for a long while now. There is huge pent up frustration in the corporate sector in relation to mobile phone related costs. These have moved in many companies in the space of 5 short years from an insignificant figure to 75% of telecomms voice costs. (i.e. the cost of a company's vodafone/o2 bill together with the "calls to mobiles" part of the eircom/esat bill. Its an area that eircom will now be in a position to put unique (and i mean unique in the true sense) products into the market which will certainly reduce costs, but still be hugely profitable by comparison with eircom's existing business units (where can you make a profit from maintaining copper, local and national calls, international calls etc, especially when you have twice as many employees as you should have using international comparatives).

The unique products will be ones that offer (1) single bill for all voice related comms services (land line and mobile) (2) reduced "on-net" landline to mobile and mobile to landline call charges (3) interoperability products - mobile is mobile rated when not in a cradle, but is land line rated when placed in a desktop/home cradle.

This is the hit that eircom wanted, and if i was an eircom shareholder I'd be very very pleased, especially if they can get the price back down towards 300/350m.

dahamsta

Someone pointed out the other day that any attempt by Eircom to consolidate their fixed and mobile businesses will fail, as demonstrated by BT's attempt in the past. I still disagree with this but I do think it's quite possible it'll fail, not due to lack of interest but rather Eircom's inability to push into the market and lead the pack, both technically and psychologically. (I.E. the company simply isn't psychologically set up to fight from the back, and still has too many hangups to push forward technically and get those products rolled out quick sharp.)

A lot depends on Vodafone and O2 though. If they're clever, they'll have already decided that they've milked the Irish market for as long as they can, and they'll have new pricing and discount plans sitting on the sideline, and new products and services on the drawing board. If they're not so clever, and Eircom actually manages to organise themselves, they'll be telling themselves that they'll get another couple months out of it, and Eircom'll cream them.

Fair dues to Eircom though. They helped me make a final decision about whether to move to Meteor or not.

adam

Cuauhtemoc

From the Indo..

EIRCOM is poised to re-enter the mobile market after the last remaining rival to buy Ireland's third mobile phone operator Meteor pulled out of the running yesterday.

Smart Telecom issued a statement saying it had withdrawn from the process. Yet banking sources said that it had tabled an 11th hour bid of €435m for Meteor.

Eircom is believed to have offered about €420m for Meteor which is being sold by US-based Western Wireless. It is understood that Smart's earlier bid had been just over €400m.

Smart Telecom said yesterday that it was withdrawing from the bidding process following a period of review by the boards of both Smart Telecom and Virgin Mobile, its bidding partner.

Analysts said the question of Smart Telecom's requirement to go to the market to raise funds in order to close the deal would have been a factor.

They added that if Eircom announces plans for a rights issue following formal confirmation of the deal, its profitable fixed line business and its massive customer base would make it more attractive for the investment community in raising a large sum.

One London-based analyst said that these issues would all have to be considered by both Western Wireless and its adviser on the deal, Deutsche Bank.

"It is not always the case that an asset will go to the highest bidder," he said.

"Deutsche Bank would also have to consider that the debt market might not value Meteor as high as the bidders."

Shares in Eircom finished down 2c at €1.85 yesterday. The company was not available for comment.

Interesting that they withdrew the 435 million bid.

oscarBravo

The idea of "on-net" mobile-landline packages is an interesting one, but would it be feasible? Wouldn't Eircom wholesale have to offer the same interconnect deal to all fixed-line telephony providers and all mobile operators, rather than being able to offer a sweetheart deal to either its fixed-line or mobile subsidiary?

SparkyLarks

They would have to offer it to another network I would think. i.e if O2 linked with BT and made one network then they would.

Alternatively Eircom Wholesale could keep their price the same but eircom reduce their margin on calls from landlines to metor networks. So they reduce margins, increase customers and turnover, without givin g an advantage to their compeditors.

Is that possible??

oscarBravo

Yes. It's called margin squeeze, and is supposed to be prevented by effective regulation.

Hornet

I think the success or failure of Meteor after a take-over by Eircom depends on the degree of "integration".

If Meteor will continue to stay at arms-length, then the detrimental inherent Eircom-attitude won't be a problem. Eircell didn't do too bad at the time!

If Eircom will try to integrate Meteor fully and, for example, fill all the relevant Meteor positions with employees who still think in Telecom Eireann patterns, Meteor will fail.

What I find surprising is that the change Eircom went through since it was privatised is really tiny. The company is run largely by a new set of people who were not around when Telecom Eireann was a state-owned monopoly, but the policies haven't changed much.

If I compare that to BT (in the UK!) the approach is a lot more open, accepting competition and competing in a positive way with the other telcos.

In the mobile phone market we still don't have a proper competitive situation, Vodafone and O2 happily kept the prices high and only when "3" (what a stupid name IMHO) starts making services available to MVNOs whe MIGHT see some proper price competition. I don't expect much from Eircom in that respect, but Imagine and others will definitely get back in the mobile market.

It will be interesting to see what Smart will do. They know that they absolutely NEED a mobile phone arm to the business to attract any buyers interest. And as this is the only thing they seem to work towards, they need to buy a licence and then set up their own network. The cost of such an operation will be not much below the Meteor price and the pain with self-build will be huge. Neither Smart nor Virgin Mobile have ever built a mobile phone network and with a new network build there will be cost from Day 1, but revenue will follow a good bit later. Could that break Smart's back?

--Hornet

SparkyLarks

oscarBravo wrote:

Yes. It's called margin squeeze, and is supposed to be prevented by effective regulation.

So If ericom does become efficant( hypotherical) and make savings in their retail side.
To lower their prices they have to drop the wholesale price., for which costs haven't been saved. Passing onto their compeditors savings for the increased efficincy of Eircom retail , even though the wholesale cost remains the same

not much of an incentive for eircom retail todrop prices if they become more efficant is it??

Could Eircom offer cheap calls from Meteoircom to Eircom landlines, as they are not the incumbant or dominant party in the mobile market??

eircomtribunal

SparkyLarks wrote:

Could Eircom offer cheap calls from Meteoircom to Eircom landlines, as they are not the incumbant or dominant party in the mobile market??

Weren't all the mobile players ComReg-designated as having significant market power status?

Whatever price Eircom will pay for Meteor (or whatever price Smart would have paid) it is us consumers who'll pay that bill in the end by overpriced mobile telephony.

P.

Tom Young

P.

Two markets in mobile.

1. Market for Origination

2. Market for Termination

Market 2. All (Four) are classified as having Single Network Dominance (SND) i.e. SMP applies. Including Hutch 3G, a network with no customers, but SMP!? Thus the first appeal to the ecap.

Market 1. Voda and O2, jointly dominant. With recommendations from the EU Comm Art 7. task force to watch fringe operators such as Meteor who are in newly formed roaming agreements. My estimate is that Meteor has 12% market share now. As opposed to ComReg's recent 9.x% finding.

TY 0)

Tom Young

SparkyLarks wrote:

They would have to offer it to another network I would think. i.e if O2 linked with BT and made one network then they would.

Alternatively Eircom Wholesale could keep their price the same but eircom reduce their margin on calls from landlines to metor networks. So they reduce margins, increase customers and turnover, without givin g an advantage to their compeditors.

Is that possible??

Funny part about this post is that I suspect eircom has mobile call elements built into the basket used to calculate fixed retail line rentals in Ireland since the eircell days. Basically inflating the prices to being the highest local/retail line rental pricing in the EU (25 member states).


Just a view.

Tom Young

oscarBravo wrote:

Yes. It's called margin squeeze, and is supposed to be prevented by effective regulation.

ComReg don't carry out transparent margin and price squeeze tests, thus eircom manage to retain fixed line and bb market shares.

Here's ComReg's latest failure to see margin squeeze: http://www.eircom.ie/About/Activities/pending.pdf