Esat's Murphy : "We are staying and we are going to fight in this market"

Dangger

Fighting talk from interim chief executive of Esat in todays Sunday Busness Post

A straight talking New Yorker, Murphy was adamant that far from pulling out the Irish telecommunications market, BT was here to stay. "We are staying and we are going to fight in this market."

While BT might have plans to get out of the residential market elsewhere in Europe, Murphy said Ireland was different because Esat was the number two player after Eircom in that market.

He said Esat Group was looking for growth of about 30 per cent in its market this year. It was targeting the top 300 corporates in the country and had already picked up a number of new clients in the last three months including Kerry Group, RTE and Irish Distillers.

Murphy makes no bones about the fact that BT wants to make its operation here work, but he also makes clear that a BT withdrawal could be bad news for Ireland Inc. "If we pull out there will be no choice in Ireland," he said.

In another related story in the Post which I cannot find a link to he Bill Murphy states:

The chief executive of the Esat group will tell Taoiseach Bertie Ahern that the regulatory framework for telecommunications is "fundamentally flawed", when he meets with him later in the month.

Murphy believe "it is bad news for IReland Inc to have one megadominant player", in the market, a spokeswoman for BT said. She added that he had written to the Taoiseach in recent days and would be meeting with him shortly.

Murphy also indicated that he would be seeking further movement on the prices that Eircom charges rivals for access to its network, even though Eircom claims it has one of the lowest interconnect rates in Europe.

Lex_Diamonds

This "Murphy" chap rules!!! Goe Murphy!!!!!

Kix

Sounds like he has cahones, I hope he follows through. I'd love to think there was a player in the marketplace prepared to shake things up a bit.

/me tentatively crosses fingers for the first time in a while...

K

PiE

Eircom chief executive Philip Nolan recently agreed to cut his wholesale price from €75 per month to €49 per month

Er... I thought the wholesale price was ~€70? Add yer VAT + a bit of profit for the ISP and it came to ~€107, right? So whats this about €49?! If the wholesale price is €49, where are eircom (et al) getting off charging us more than double that?

(Sorry if I'm wrong here, havent been keeping up lately)

Dr.Seagull

€49 is the wholesale price
eircom charge €89 euro to the customer when u add vat to that u get €108

viking

Originally posted by Dr.Seagull
€49 is the wholesale price
eircom charge €89 euro to the customer when u add vat to that u get €108

Here's a mad thought... :rolleyes:

Could the Government help the uptake of broadband in Ireland by (temporarily/permanently) reducing/abolishing the VAT which is applied to the cost of DSL. I mean businesses can claim it back at year end, so why couldn't regular consumers benefit in a similar way.

If they reduced the VAT to 10% at least it would bring the price to just under €100...

viking

longword

Originally posted by viking
Could the Government help the uptake of broadband in Ireland by (temporarily/permanently) reducing/abolishing the VAT which is applied to the cost of DSL.

Such a move would not serve to promote competition and that's what we really need.

jd

Originally posted by longword

Such a move would not serve to promote competition and that's what we really need.

I don't think the government would do this-it would be too politically contentious when you think of other things that have vat applied

Fallschirmjager

Since the exchequer is short 1.5 billion this year on estimates, i would say that we have no hope in hell of getting VAT off. Also there is VAT on hospital goods and food -- call me old fashioned, but maybe there is an arguement for them to be cut as well...i think you see where this is going..someohow i cant see this been done as it would cause the end of the world as charlie mc creevy knows it.

still...an idea -- better then a moan....

why cant the little ****s just get on with it..we need someone who will fight and this ESAT guy from New York...now he sounds like a player..the sad thing is all those other tossers around him (the yes minister types) will grind him down. SO perhaps we need to send some cheer his way.

and here is mine

GET THE COST OF UNMETERED DSL TO MY HOUSE FROM ESAT FOR THE 30's TO 40's EURO BRACKET PER MONTH FLAT RATE-- AND I WILL TRANSFER TO ESAT THE WHOLE BLOODY LOT of MY BUSINESS.

carbsy

Gov will prob put VAT on books next 2 repay sum of our debt

sceptre

Not after the arguments on children's shoes and jaffa cakes (UK that one, I think);)