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Ireland Broadband Overview

In early 2006 Ireland had one of the lowest broadband penetrations in Europe. Low penetration has been due to high wholesale costs, limited coverage in many non-urban areas, high retail prices, and lack of competition. Other barriers to broadband growth in Ireland include late liberalisation of the telecommunications market and a delay in the introduction of broadband services.

However, many of these issues are being addressed, resulting in some significant improvements. Growth in the broadband market has been strong in the last few years, with Ireland’s broadband population penetration rate increasing to 18.7 per cent by the end of 2007, placing the country in line with the EU average. With one of the lowest monthly broadband costs in the EU, and Eircom upgrading all its offerings, Ireland seems to be overcoming many of its previous shortcomings.

Eircom, the incumbent and Esat BT are the main DSL providers in Ireland. Eircom’s market share of retail broadband subscriptions is 44 per cent, and the company also holds a 19.2 per cent share in the mobile market under the brand name Meteor. Alternative operators using either Bitstream or LLU represented a further 19 per cent of all broadband subscriptions, and by the end of December 2007 there were about 17,900 local loops unbundled. The remaining 37 per cent was held by operators on alternative broadband platforms including cable broadband, fixed wireless, fibre, satellite, and mobile broadband subscriptions. Ireland’s two largest cable TV providers are NTL and Chorus Communications which were bought up and merged into UPC Ireland.

Mobile penetration in Ireland stood at 116 per cent at the end of 2007. The main mobile operators are Vodafone, O2, Meteor, 3 Ireland, and Tesco Mobile. 3 Ireland operates only in the 3G sector and Tesco Mobile, which only entered the market in the last quarter of 2007, operates solely in the prepaid sector. At Q4 2007, Vodafone had a market share of 44.2 per cent, with O2 at 32.3 per cent, Meteor at 19.2 per cent, and 3 Ireland with 4.4 per cent. Figures for Tesco have not yet been released.

Since 2000, Ireland’s mobile operators have updated their networks a number of times, adding not just 3G capability but a host of other network enhancements. With the deployment of the latest technologies (HSDPA and HSUPA), the operators are beginning to compete head-to-head with fixed operators for a slice of the broadband market. Currently three of the Irish mobile operators have mobile broadband offerings with a combined subscriber base of 128,000 in the fourth quarter of 2007, equivalent to around 14 per cent of total broadband subscriptions in Ireland. These operators are 3 Ireland, O2 and Vodafone. All three are combining HSPA with GSM/EDGE which theoretically should offer 99 per cent coverage.