Eircom sees profit plunge

Eircom's third quarter results show an operating profit of EUR69 million, down 27 percent from last year's EUR95 million.

Meanwhile, revenue fell 5 percent to EUR488 million. The company lost 22,000 telephone customers in the quarter, but garnered an extra 19,000 broadband subscribers.

On the plus side, profits at Eircom subsidiary Meteor jumped 17 percent to EUR35 million; however revenue at the mobile operator slipped 2 percent to EUR117 million.

In line with the experiences of rival mobile operators Vodafone and O2, Meteor's average monthly revenue per user fell 6 percent to EUR37.52 over a year.

Given that Three have been effectively handed the Governments Broadband Rollout contract this may hit Eircom hard in both the fixed line ADSL market and "Mobile Broadband" ala Midband market with Meteor's "Broadband" packages.

Once Three begin rolling out their Midband packages across all of Ireland and they pump up advertising on it it will be interesting to see how this will hit Eircom's profit margins even further.

We all think eircom sucks but compared to Three I'd rather see the people of Ireland receive a ADSL Broadband service instead of a Three Midband (Mobile Broadband) service which is frankly not suitable for on-line gaming, VoIP etc.

Some content Taken from enn.ie

Irish Gov rules out taking over Eircom

Thank feck for that!

RTE.ie are reporting today that Minister for Communications Eamon Ryan has ruled out State ownership of telecoms provider Eircom.

If the government did nationalize Eircom it would cost them about 4 -5 billion euro's (debt + pensions) and they'd effectively get a outdated telecoms networks.

If the Irish Government wanted to own a telecoms network they'd almost be better off starting a new agency and spend that 4-5 Billion euro on building new infrastructure such as fibre to the home.

Minister Ryan went on to criticize what he called Eircom's short-term ownership model and said he would welcome and facilitate investors with the capacity to invest in a long-term business model for Eircom.

The full story is below or can be viewed on RTE.ie:

State ownership of Eircom ruled out
Saturday, 23 May 2009 13:05

Minister for Communications Eamon Ryan has ruled out State ownership of telecoms provider Eircom.

Speaking at the Telecommunications and Internet Federation's annual charity ball last night, the Minister said that while the Government attached significant importance to Eircom, State ownership of the company was not on his agenda.

Mr Ryan criticised what he called Eircom's short-term ownership model and said he would welcome and facilitate investors with the capacity to invest in a long-term business model for Eircom.

Ireland drops in OECD Broadband rankings

As discussed in the Ireland Off-Line forum on boards, Ireland has slipped in the OECD Broadband rankings PDF Available here.

This is not a good thing for anyone and should be a major concern for the government, of course its hard for the general public to get the facts when journalists report everything arse ways!

Will things improve in the short term....I very much doubt it!