Personal view in the Sunday Times

I have a piece in the Sunday Times this week about the splitting of eircom. They also carry a good story about the fact that TDs and Senators also can’t get broadband.

4 Responses to “Personal view in the Sunday Times”

  1. adam says:

    I thought Danon was in favour of splitting the company Damien, in fact I thought that was B&B’s big selling point? Were they selling snake oil?

  2. Damien says:

    Babcock wanted to if they could first kill off LLU. I think the union said no about the split and then there was that awful EU regulation saying LLU has to happen. Damned eurocrats.

  3. But BT *is* largely split for all practical intents and purposes at this stage. There’s something called ‘Openreach’ which manages certain critical aspects of the network and has done since the beginning of this year. There isn’t a different ownership structure, but there are very different management lines.

    Do you seriously believe that Babcock thought they could just come along and negotiate away LLU? I know the story went around, but come on, Babcock are employing some seriously brainy people and at least one of them would have realised that Ireland was in the EU when they saw that they could use their French money in the shops here. Anyways, what would splitting wholesale from retail actually mean if there wasn’t also unbundling? If the government were to do this, it would almost certainly kick into action its backup plan to merge the telecomms operations of HEA, ESB, BnM, OPW, CIE and god knows what else to create a new telecomms force, and i can guarantee you that B+B wouldn’t like that idea very much. The whole concept of unbundling is what makes eircom wholesale such an attractive asset for Babcock.

    All my personal view of course!

  4. Taking It To The Times

    Damien Mulley poses a nice piece in today’s Sunday Times focussing on the splitting of Eircom – a good look at the scenario surrounding a voluntary split of the company, or a government / ComReg forced split and its impact on broadband delivery. …