Esat & Eircom, exchanges.

Lex_Diamonds

Am I right in saying that Eircom and Esat are colluding with regard to adsl rollouts? e.g. "You guys can have place x but dont come into place y, thats ours."

Is this a generally held view among people here, or am I being paranoid?

Kevok

The idea was being thrown around a while back. If it was true and could be proven then they'd both have put nooses around their necks. AFAIK the term for that kind of "co-operation" is a cartel and is wholly illegal. IMO something almost as bad as a monopoly.

Not sure if i'm 100% right about that, but someone will correct me if i'm wrong.

SkepticOne

Originally posted by Lex_Diamonds
Am I right in saying that Eircom and Esat are colluding with regard to adsl rollouts? e.g. "You guys can have place x but dont come into place y, thats ours."

AFAIK, Esat's DSL rollout under LLU is part-Government funded and therefore the choice of location is partly down to the Department of Communications, Environment and the Marine (formerly DPE).

I believe the Governernment are also funding an Eircom DSL rollout in different exchanges.

aidan_dunne

I've always been of the opinion (which I've voiced numerous times on this forum) that Eircom and Esat have, particularly recently, been in some form of collusion. The whole DSL thing certainly smacks of two rival city gangs or drug barons meeting up and agreeing to stay out of each other's patches. They seem to have been making serious moves lately to try and prevent further competition from entering the country so they can tie up the Irish market between them. They have both said they would like to see a "lighter handed" regulator, presumably so the two of them can get away with murder.

I think Eircom was seriously against Esat for a long time and was trying to push them out of the market completely but they now realise that if this happens it will look as if Eircom has the monopoly again (we all know they still do anyway) and this will be seen to be anti-competitive and they could end up in serious trouble. Since the new management came in, I think they, and Philip Nolan in particular, have thought a lot about this and has decided to "team up" with Esat in a way. They can both act together to secretly tie up the market between them, with Eircom feeding Esat the crumbs, but Eircom can't get in trouble because if someone says that they are the monopoly holders and there is no competition in the market all they have to say is, "Yes there is. There's Esat."

As someone once said, "Keep your friends close but your enemies even closer!" That's what I think is happening here.

"Wild conspiracy theory"? I'll leave you to decide!

segadreamcast

Aren't Esat supposed to be rolling out DSL in Dublin sometime late this year or early 2003...?