eircom

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Eircom’s FTTH rollout slows

Today’s quarterly presentation from Eircom contains more disappointment on FTTP progress. Only 24k premises were passed in Q2 2026 which is about half the rate it was achieving in 2023. As the weather was fairly benign it has to be assumed that this is the trend for the future. On the basis of last 12-month figure (129k) Eircom is unlikely to complete its 1.9M target before mid 2029. On the basis of last quarter’s results it could be well into 2030. We would question also whether a proportion of the quarter’s roll-out is new build or whether it refers exclusively to the...

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Infrastructure

Another day another directive. This time Europe wants utility owners in member states to see the sense in sharing their infrastructure, so for instance, instead of building two completely separate pole and duct networks to carry fibre optic cables in rural areas, there would be open-access infrastructure that would serve all telecoms providers on a transparent equitable basis. So far, so common sense; and the department were, at one time at least, adamantly in favour, “..there will be no duplication of infrastructure. We are required under state aid guidelines to avoid this, but it is also a logical step that...