The Eircom Deal: Our submission to the EC.

It’s now nearly 4 months since Minister Naughten agreed his deal with Eircom – the so-called ‘300K Network’.

We’ve given our views on it already, however the reaction of the remaining bidders has been strangely muted. Sure, ALTO (the alternative operators group) have been critical and said so to ComReg, but apart from some unattributable grumbling, SIRO and enet, have avoided commenting on the record.

To be clear, this idiotic deal will potentially unravel six long years of planning and leave the NBP solely to Eircom, whose miserly record of investment in rural Ireland since 1999 is a matter of public record.

We thought someone ought to complain about it where it matters. So back in April we picked out what we thought were the most damaging parts and then made a submission to the European Commission. The summary is below, and you can find the full text here.

At this time we have no idea whether the EC took up the points made in the complaint or whether the matter is closed.