# Vodafone to enter fixed line phone market



## chris20051 (27 May 2008)

On todays RTE news
http://www.rte.ie/business/2008/0527/vodafone.html


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## addob (27 May 2008)

They bought Perlico sometime ago so this was in the pipeline.


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## MB05 (27 May 2008)

When I heard this I thought it might be a threat to eircom.  I just don't think their price is very  aggressive.  Is it me or is this just a run of the mill offer?  I think BT have a similar offer minus the 3 unlimited vodafone mobile calls.  Same old story, rather than shaking up the market they just match the rest of them.


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## serotoninsid (28 May 2008)

MB05 said:


> When I heard this I thought it might be a threat to eircom.  I just don't think their price is very  aggressive.  Is it me or is this just a run of the mill offer?  I think BT have a similar offer minus the 3 unlimited vodafone mobile calls.  Same old story, rather than shaking up the market they just match the rest of them.


They can't - not when it comes to fixed line.  All the other companies are just resellers, piggybacking on eircoms network. Thats why eircom bumped up the line rental (as this cant be touched).


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## ang1170 (28 May 2008)

serotoninsid said:


> Thats why eircom bumped up the line rental (as this cant be touched).


 
It's all really down to the regulator, which stood by and let eircom re-balance their charges towards line rental. Result: there will never be real competition in the fixed-line business.

You need a strong regulator to make competition work in the telecom market, and we just don't have one.


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## MB05 (28 May 2008)

The regulator has stopped eircom increasing the line rental.  As far as I know they can't touch it again until 2010.  They also lowered the margin of profit they can make on capital investment from 11.5% to 10.21% this week.

I work for eircom and while I can't defend the indefencible I do think it is unfair to expect eircom to invest billions in new technology, upgrading the ageing network etc only to be told we can't make our investment back on it.  I think the piggybackers have it easy.  All they do is resell our product.  The regulator sets the price we can charge them, they have none of our overheads and we are supposed to be able to compete with them.  I know we are far from perfect but it is hard to see why you would bother investing that kind of money only to hand it over to your competitors to undercut you.  

We are owned by finance companies now, indebted to the eyeballs and they are not going to spend a penny if they can get away with it.  They are in it for a quick buck.  They don't give a c**p about telecoms, customers or their staff for that matter.  I thought it was hilarious that they had the cheek to ask the government for a handout to invest in broadband!  The government should never have sold the infrastucture.


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## serotoninsid (28 May 2008)

MB05 said:


> I work for eircom and while I can't defend the indefencible I do think it is unfair to expect eircom to invest billions in new technology, upgrading the ageing network etc only to be told we can't make our investment back on it.  I think the piggybackers have it easy.  All they do is resell our product.  The regulator sets the price we can charge them, they have none of our overheads and we are supposed to be able to compete with them.  I know we are far from perfect but it is hard to see why you would bother investing that kind of money only to hand it over to your competitors to undercut you.


The company was run down (with successive investors taking money out of the company) to a point where its not capable of Investing even if  it wanted to.  BT have been led into the same scenario across the water with a much greater degree of success - albeit more effective regulation.
Otherwise, we could come to the conclusion that the actual network itself should never have been sold off in the first place...


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## paddyd (28 May 2008)

MB05 said:


> The government should never have sold the infrastucture.



'Eircom - Did you get burned'
http://www.rte.ie/tv/scannal/Eircom.html

god the nostalgia, I can still see Mary O Rourke, telling us all to rush to get a piece of a National institution 
everyone became stock dealers over-night, and even unborn babies were being registered for their share allocation.

As the market was just being de-regulated at the time, the incumbent couldn't continue to outperform. After all, they already had 100% of the market


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## ang1170 (29 May 2008)

MB05 said:


> The regulator has stopped eircom increasing the line rental. As far as I know they can't touch it again until 2010.


 
Four words: stable door horse bolted, and er, a fifth: lock.



MB05 said:


> We are owned by finance companies now, indebted to the eyeballs and they are not going to spend a penny if they can get away with it. They are in it for a quick buck. They don't give a c**p about telecoms, customers or their staff for that matter.


 
Agree 100%. 



MB05 said:


> The government should never have sold the infrastucture.


 
Agree 100%.

The current situation (a complete mess) you describe was entirely predictable.

The West Link bridge is another example of what happens when governments sell off (or should that be "hand over") infrastructure without thinking through the consequences of what might happen. Prediction: watch out for a few PPP deals to end up with spectacular costs for the public and equally spectacular profits for the private part in the years to come. 

Sorry: starting to rant a bit here....


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## Wexfordman (30 May 2008)

MB05 said:


> We are owned by finance companies now, indebted to the eyeballs and they are not going to spend a penny if they can get away with it.  They are in it for a quick buck.  They don't give a c**p about telecoms, customers or their staff for that matter.  I thought it was hilarious that they had the cheek to ask the government for a handout to invest in broadband!  The government should never have sold the infrastucture.




Going a bit OT now, but, is a lage percentage (up around 30%%) of Eircom owned by the employees via the very TAX effeceint ESOT scheme. The employees have not been badly looked after it seems to me.

Wexfordman


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## MB05 (30 May 2008)

Yes the ESOT owns 30% of eircom but what the media fail to mention is that we paid for those shares.  They did not come free and believe me we are paying for it now.  When we initially bought the shares we owned 14.9% of Telecom Eireann.  5% of this was 'free', 5% we got in exchange for a transformation programme that is still being held over us and the other 4.9% was bought by us via a loan at the market rate at the time.  I now pay for my pension which I never did before, we gave up our annual bonus, overtime became 50/50 (time in lieu) etc etc.  Basically our terms and conditions were eroded and none of this is ever mentioned in the papers.

The ESOT negotitated any subsequent purchases with the various new owners.    Seeing as the ESOT were paying cash and they were borrowing the money they bargained well.  

Also its worth noting that less than half the 14000 ESOT participants are current eircom employees.  The ESOT votes on whats best for their shareholders.  They don't make decisions on whats best for the staff.  They never consult us.

The fact that we nearly went on strike last year for the first time in 30 years should tell you something.  Over 98% of the staff voted to strike.  That's how unhappy the staff are.


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## Jack The Lad (30 May 2008)

MB05 said:


> The fact that we nearly went on strike last year for the first time in 30 years should tell you something. Over 98% of the staff voted to strike. That's how unhappy the staff are.


 
I'm in the process of leaving my landline behind and transferring my number to the Irish VOIP service "Blueface". Been test running it for a few weeks now and so far the service is excellent. 

While it's never good to hear that a company's staff are unhappy in their work, I have to say that hearing the quoted statement would be another encouragement for me to continue the transfer with confidence. 

Transferring to VOIP, apart from slightly cheaper calls locally, and incredibly cheap international calls, also removes the burden of line rental, which, as mentioned above, is the Achilles Heel for consumers searching for a fair deal in the Irish telecoms market.


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