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YESTERDAY, EIR ANNOUNCED that they were withdrawing their bid for the Rural Broadband Plan, which has sparked claims that this would both speed up and slow down the rollout of high-speed internet connections across Ireland.
Eir has already rolled out fibre broadband – which is a higher quality, higher speed broadband, to 70% of homes across Ireland – with about 540,000 homes and businesses still remaining to be connected.
The National Broadband Plan aims to give 750,000 premises nationwide a minimum download speed of 30Mbps. This also covers Irish businesses that currently have no access to broadband from commercial operators.
The government had placed a tender out for the remainder of the process, and two bidders were in the mix – Eir and Enet.
Eir, having proceeded with its own rural broadband rollout which took 300,000 premises off the list for the State-subsided National Broadband Plan (NBP), was thought to have been the most likely winner of the tender.
But yesterday, they said they were withdrawing from the tendering process due to a number of factors. Eir CEO Richard Moat told Morning Ireland today:
We took this decision after a long process, it’s being going on for three years, and the contract that the process is based upon has been increasingly onerous… The overall investment environment was not conducive and we couldn’t make a business case stack up. So regrettably, we had to pull out.
Moat denied that the company’s withdrawal for the latter part of the broadband rollout was connected in any way to French billionaire Xavier Niel buying a majority stake in the company in December last year.
Eir are still in the process of rolling out fibre broadband to 300,000 homes in Ireland and are currently “half way through that”. Moat added that the rest would be connected by the end of the year, all going to plan.
He addressed concerns reported by some that the homes that have already been connected don’t have a consistent connection and that multiple users can’t use the internet at the same time in some quarters.
We’ve got 600 customers covered with an offering of 600Mbps, we’ve spent about €40 million in Galway alone. I understand frustration but we are still rolling out fibre to those areas right now.
In a statement yesterday, the former State-owned telecoms company said it had made its decision:
based upon the significant commercial issues and complexity within the tender process, together with growing uncertainty on a range of regulatory and pricing issues that reside outside of the NBP process.
The company’s board has decided that the risks are too great for its continued participation in the NBP. Therefore, Eir has taken the difficult decision to withdraw from the tender process.
“We went into this tender with intention of winning all of it or as much of it as we could,” Moat said this morning.
In a statement yesterday, Minister for Communications Denis Naughten said that Eir had decided to exit the National Broadband Plan because of “commercial, regulatory and governance issues”.
The company invested significant time and resources to the process and their withdrawal from the process at this late stage is regrettable.
So what happens now?
Enet is now the sole bidder for the tender – yesterday it reaffirmed that it was committed to the project.
“We recognise that this procurement is long and complicated, but we look forward to our continued engagement with the department on the remainder of the process,” Enet chair David C McCourt said.
If they do win the contract, there will be a slight overlap between them and Eir as they take over the reins of the broadband rollout plan.
In one example put to Moat, it was said that in cases where Enet needs to use Eir poles to continue the rollout of broadband, the prices of letting those out are already decided by the regulator, so there would be no delays caused by pricing disputes.
Moat said that they haven’t spoken to Enet yet about what they would charge them to use other infrastructure already put in place by Eir – this is because up until yesterday they were both bidders for the process, and so weren’t permitted to speak with one another until the process had concluded.
Taoiseach Leo Varadkar told reporters this evening that he is not sure of the implications of Eir’s withdrawal, but said the government is keen to conclude a contract.
“Those 500,000 rural homes and premises are really important, as important as rural electrification back in the 30s and 40s and we are keen to concluding this contract and start laying fibre as soon as we can,” Varadkar said.
- with reporting from Fora.ie
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The Greek government is really frustrating not only has Europe bent over backward to help them while Ireland like the mugs are government are pay the full price of a bailout but now they do this, I never agree with sarkozy but on this occasion I do!!
Let’s be honest, the Greeks deserve little sympathy for the disgraceful way they cooked the books to get into Europe, the way they continually run their country in the awful manner and in the way they have been expectibg everybody else to sort out their problems with no negative ramifications.
But I don’t have a problem with them having a referendum on what will be a huge financial decision made by a country that could effect millions for decades. It is a truly democratic act. Irrespective of whether or not the Greeks caused their own downfall , it’s an act of oppression for European leaders to force savage cuts without the agreement of the Greek people.
Don’t want to hear that Greece signed up to this with eu as nobody who signed upto join Europe envisaged this scenario.
While it annoys and puts the rest of us out, I think the Greek government gave its people the choice to take harsh medicine or go down a potentially harder route. For me that’s very much less efficient then taking the tough choices for your country but it’s as democratic as it gets.
Stable door, horse bolt, shutting afterwards …. Etc etc
what an outrageous suggestion to let the people affected by the austerity measures decide their fate …thank god our government aren’t that foolish and continue to do our thinking for us
I’d welcome a referendum here. It’d be good to see those who advocate a rejection of the IMF and a unilateral default lay their cards on the table. I think the response of the Irish people would be interesting when they see the figures.
ok to all the people who may have had a sarcasm by pass… i will spell it out plainly… we should have had a referendum 2 years ago but those in power (in their wisdom) decided that they know whats best for US and we should just put up and shut up and take the austerity medicine …in order to protect their own elitist asses….
Where do they expect the money to come from? Is it not a clever tactic by papandreou to make them tow the line a bit? Surely they’ll have to vote yes whether they really want it or not and then he proceeds effectively with the support of the nation, rather than taking the blame for the decision himself, the whole country make the decision which in turn might diminish the civil unrest……either that of they kick off big style, vote no and then he’s F*****d!!!
The wording of the referendum will be vital. They probably won’t define what No means. If it was defined as ‘Greece unilaterally defaults and leaves Euro’ then Greeks might vote Yes. If it is defined ‘Greece will reject this deal and look for a better one’ then it will probably be a No vote.
But I can see the ECB etc getting rightly frustrated with this. They might frame the No vote as being a rejection by Greece of the Euro and just accept that Greece is defaulting and leaving the Euro. it’d be very tempting to be rid of the Greek problem once and for all. Taxpayers in Germany would love the idea. But the worries about how bad Greece might get would probably be too much. However bad Greece is, it could get a hell of a lot worse.
I Presume a referendum will take months to arrange (and probably be lost) and all the while the rest of Europe suffers more Market turmoil. I also presume no mention was made by the Greeks of a referendum when agreeing to an extremely generous bailout package. If that be the case, the deal should be taken off the table and let Greece paddle it’s own (very leaky) canoe outside of the Eurozone. Better to stand back and watch Greece burn rather than fiddle while the rest of us do.
We are watching what will be the end of euro. Greece will never be able to service there debt, Italy is now in trouble with Portugal,Spain,Belgium & Ireland all waiting in the wings. Hopefully they find away for members to return to there own currency’s and dissolve the euro. Not an easy task I know.
We all know this going to end in tears, so why keep dragging it out. Let’s ended it know and start the rebuilding process sooner rather than later.
Europes grand fudge began to unravel yesterday before Greeces referendum announcement.
China’s official statement on Sunday that it will not be bailing Europe out put the initial spanner in the works.
EU leaders proposal is heavy on aspiration but light on concrete measures.
Europes crisis may well overtake events before any Greek poll.
At long last.. the turkeys will have a say on Christmas.
This is brilliant move. Watch the suits shaking in their boots and remember keep laughing when they start the scaremongering. The fairy story called capitalism a la brothers Grimm is coming to an end.
End it now guys and put away your lovely lecterns over there in Brussels. Professional unelected bullying is not a real job anyway and I fear you will all find it quite hard back with the rest of us in the real world here on planet Earth
Home of democracy allows its citizens exercise democracy at the ballot box. Seems reasonable. How many in Ireland would have voted through the Cowen-Lenihan bak guarantee?
Depends on the alternative. No doubt you wod paint No, and unilateral default, as being fantastic. Let’s have your vote nw and see how things stand. Let’s see if the unions are happy with the bailout or want a default. Lets see if the multinationals are spooked by a unilateral default. Let’s see how Sinn Fein plan to balance the books when the country has no access to borrowing.
Let’s see some facts and figures. I want to see this populist message that telling the IMF to get stuffed will mean that the government will be able to spend more money really get explained in detail to the Irsh people.
The Cowen-Lenihan bank guarantee shifted the private debts of the banks onto the sovereign balance sheet, the taxpayer balance sheet in effect. The knock on effect has produced NAMA, the majority of its debt is due to just 650 borrowers, and bumper bank recapitalisations. Meanwhile, in the midst of all this ‘recovery’ and fixing ‘systemic’ banks such as Anglo and INBS, credit is tighter than ever, property prices are still falling, mortgage distress is worsening, insolvencies in SMEs are ‘levelling out’ after four years of a flood, unemployment is topped at an artificial ‘low’ of 450k due to emigration, record numbers in third level and in various schemes. Having referendums on policies that carry the risk of bankrupting one if not two generations, and tearing up the social fabric of families for decades, do not strike me as unreasonable.
3 holes in EU’s debt plan. Not including any hint as to how renewed growth is to be achieved.
http://finance.fortune.cnn.com/2011/10/31/european-debt-deal-holes/?section=money_topstories&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+rss%2Fmoney_topstories+%28Top+Stories%29&utm_content=Google+International
Only growth will resolve Europes crisis.
http://ukhousebubble.blogspot.com/2011/10/only-economic-growth-can-resolve.html?m=1
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