4G Licence Award We in IrelandOffline are delighted that the spectrum auctions raised badly need revenue for the state and hope this revenue can be used wisely for the benefit of the Irish people. One of the key goals of the auction was a 70% population coverage clause (cf 98% for UK auctions). We would, however like to take this opportunity to publicise what 70% geographic coverage actually means for rural consumers. It is less than 13% of the national area.(1) Even worse only 50% of the population need be served by the new technology and by the end of...

IrelandOffline have analysed the Comreg document 12/63 “Price regulation of bundled offers” in one of their interminable consultation extravaganzas. This is where (their words): “ComReg has gathered further data to help it understand better whether different structural conditions of competition are in fact evolving in different locations across Ireland”. Having abandoned rural Ireland to sub-standard 4G coverage Comreg now proposes to abandon the same consumers for broadband. Comreg basically  propose to allow eircom to “compete” in selected urban areas and at the direct expense of rural consumers. In these selected urban areas  no line rental (currently over €26 a month...

Landline Penetration in Ireland Drops Below 50% IrelandOffline have examined the latest figure from eircom and observe that the latest results state that they now only have 999,000 residential customers down some 108,000 or 10% on the year.(1) Ireland has 2.04m homes. (2) Eamonn Wallace,Chairman of IrelandOffline  notes “This equates to a landline penetration of under 50% which is by far the lowest in the developed world. This is unsurprising as eircom line rental is the highest in the whole world and has been so since 2003.  As late as 1998, shortly before privatisation, landline penetration was around 90% of...

Sky Broadband We have received  a number of enquiries asking about how the entry of Sky into the broadband market in Ireland will be a “game changer” and other unrealistic expectations. For IrelandOffline the entry of Sky into the Irish market is fundamentally uninteresting as Sky will probably not add one iota of new infrastructure. They will simply be just another reseller of BT and eircom infrastructure like Vodafone and a myriad of others. The only innovation Sky may offer is better marketing and perhaps a better bundled offer (one of interest only to those who want Pay TV*). It...

ComReg dodges the question(s) on spectrum auctions and 4G rollout We read with much mirth and bemusement Comreg’s “answers” to simple questions posed by SiliconRepublic. (1) The so-called answers are worthy of an episode of “Yes Minister”. Not a single simple question was, in fact, actually answered. What is most telling from their copy and pasted response is what was actually left out. In a copy and pasted and overly long and verbose response to what are perfectly reasonable questions they cannot say: whether the auction and bidding has started yet what they are doing to expedite the delay in...