Magnet pulling out, BT next to go business only?

damien

Via the Indo

Sources close to the company said yesterday that BT Ireland is over-staffed and is likely to reconsider its position in relation to residential telecoms services, including fixed-line telephony and broadband services.

Market commentators said yesterday that if BT did decide to pull out of the residential market, it would be a blow to Ireland’s telecoms industry.

Recently, telecoms firm Magnet Networks confirmed it would not be offering Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) broadband services in the future and the Government has scrapped its group broadband scheme for rural areas.

watty

Because Magnet can't make much or any money out of DSL, LLU or GLUMP, nor does anyone else except eircom.

Competiton in the DSL market is an illusion. There is mostly only eircom.

BT bought esat for the long haul, but it may be getting too long.

Mr_Man

Perhaps, with all of the new powers Comreg are apparently getting, the minister should tie the salaries of the Commissioners to the number of unbundled lines, with a base of 20% of the total unbundled before they get any kind of bonus. Might sharpen their appetite for taking on Eircom and giving us a competitive market rather than the sham we have now.

M.

bealtine

Mr_Man wrote:

the minister should be giving us a competitive market rather than the sham we have now.

M.

This reply uses Ministerial speak(tm)

"In a fully liberalized market each company does as it must."

Code for I'm going to sit on my hands again and do the same as I did last time...absolutely nothing whatsoever.
Only two moths or so to the election, the punters will never find out in time that I'm going to do nothing...

TimTim

Seems to be a very expensive market to be in...

BT Group’s Irish subsidiary, BT Ireland, has amassed losses of almost EUR1 billion (USD1.29 billion) since it entered the market, reports Irish news journal Unison.ie, citing official figures just registered at the Companies Office. The figures will increase speculation that the parent company will soon conduct a review of its ‘over-staffed’ business, which employs over 3,000 people but which is struggling to compete with incumbent eircom – especially in the residential segment. Unconfirmed sources suggest that BT is preparing to reconsider its position in the market, particularly concerning the provision of residential fixed voice and broadband services. Any decision to pull out of the consumer market would be a blow to the wider industry which only recently saw another smaller firm, Magnet Networks, announcing its decision not to participate in LLU via DSL-based broadband services.
http://www.telegeography.com/cu/article.php?article_id=16622&email=html

I think this is a very slippery slope the market is heading down. Unless some radical action is taken very soon the future looks grim for telecoms in Ireland.

OfflerCrocGod

Awful news I don't blame them though you can't beat €ircon in this country :mad:

uncle_sam_ie

Wow, this could expose eircoms damaging monopoly to the wider public. I bet eircom aren't too happy about this either.

bealtine

uncle_sam_ie wrote:

Wow, this could expose eircoms damaging monopoly to the wider public. I bet eircom aren't too happy about this either.

In fairness they are just playing by the rules that have been laid down.
As the Citigroup report said a long time ago : It is a masterclass in playing the regulatory game. Give somebody a board/pitch to play on and they'll play on it.

I lay the blame at the feet of Comreg and their Minister. Ultimately the minister is responsible for telecommunications (and other stuff too) in the country.

1huge1

uncle_sam_ie wrote:

Wow, this could expose eircoms damaging monopoly to the wider public. I bet eircom aren't too happy about this either.

Id say there loving it
they'll just play down the whole monoply thing as usual and at the same time there biggest competitior is getting sick of competing (for obvious reasons)

uncle_sam_ie

bealtine wrote:

In fairness they are just playing by the rules that have been laid down.
As the Citigroup report said a long time ago : It is a masterclass in playing the regulatory game. Give somebody a board/pitch to play on and they'll play on it.

I lay the blame at the feet of Comreg and their Minister. Ultimately the minister is responsible for telecommunications (and other stuff too) in the country.

I agree. It's a complete train wreck and were not seeing anything coming from the government to fix it.

thegills

If BT can't make money then we're in trouble. BT were given £10M by the state to unbundle 40 exchanges and more state funding for the Western Digital Corridor and their national network on the railway line.

Boston

I read somewhere that BT loose 5 euro a month on every broadband subscriber, that's not a situation that can be sustained.

cgarvey

BT's unbundled exchanges were not the focus of their recent residential drives. To the point that a few people I know were given BitStream rather than LLU on unbundled exchanges.

It's reasonably well known that BT were making a loss on consumer BB in the hope of getting some market share. I presume themselves and Magnet were taking a hit to get the numbers up with LLU being the only option long term. It's like they know there's more LLU process trouble on the way and are just walking away now.

It's not good news for eircom, and I'd doubt they'll be laughing at all. It now puts a whole load more political pressure on them (which will eventually filter down to regulation, once there's enough pressure built up). Regulation, generall speaking, will cost them money. It's also a loss of an easy-money revenue stream. Sure, they'll get many of the customers back, but at a labour cost.

Will the Magnet & potential BT announcement change anything (in terms of political support and regulation)?

jesus_thats_gre

3,000 staff? Fook

JMcL

bealtine wrote:

I lay the blame at the feet of Comreg and their Minister. Ultimately the minister is responsible for telecommunications (and other stuff too) in the country.

Ah but sure it's only the ministers responsibility if it's a good news story that'll generate a few nice soundbites on the 6 o'clock news. Bad news stories, as is common with everything else "regulated" under this poxy government, are a "matter for the regulator as we're operating in a competitive environment, and I can't be seen to be interfering, so I wash my hands of it" or words to that effect

Solair

In my personal experience several of the smaller telcos are shooting themselves in the foot by providing abysmal customer service. I cannot believe that BT has 3000 staff here. What do they do? I mean, they're clearly not being paid to answer the phones anyway.

I realise that many of their issues are down to eircom's monopoly etc etc. But, there's a whole lot to be said for getting basic customer service and billing right.

I mean, how much time and money is lost by people disputing BT bills?

I really think if these telcos don't get their act together and get their socks pulled up they'll continue to fail to attract customers.

The whole market's disfuctional ! You've a choice between the overpriced incumbant or a "bunch of muppets".

JohnC.

When companies say they will not offer the services in the future, do they mean they won't take on any new subscribers, or would they be pulling the plug on existing ones too? I'm with BT, so it's a little bit worrying

Urban Weigl

Kahless wrote:

When companies say they will not offer the services in the future, do they mean they won't take on any new subscribers, or would they be pulling the plug on existing ones too? I'm with BT, so it's a little bit worrying

Even if this were to happen, which is certainly very possible, they'd keep existing customers. Kind of like Magnet are doing: if you're an existing customer, or in fact if you specifically ask for the service, you can continue subscribing. They just won't spend any more money on marketing and obtaining new customers.

I see no reason for you to worry.

1huge1

Solair wrote:

In my personal experience several of the smaller telcos are shooting themselves in the foot by providing abysmal customer service. I cannot believe that BT has 3000 staff here. What do they do? I mean, they're clearly not being paid to answer the phones anyway.

I realise that many of their issues are down to eircom's monopoly etc etc. But, there's a whole lot to be said for getting basic customer service and billing right.

I mean, how much time and money is lost by people disputing BT bills?

I really think if these telcos don't get their act together and get their socks pulled up they'll continue to fail to attract customers.

The whole market's disfuctional ! You've a choice between the overpriced incumbant or a "bunch of muppets".

its 1000 here and the other 2000 in the north
they cleverly said on the island

Its understandable that they have so many up there seen as there our comparision to eircom (of course they actually did their job...)

enn.ie ran a story yesterday from them though with a reply to this statement saying that they have no intention of leaving the irish consumer broadband market and basically that there not going to be pulling out of anything
as for being over staffed as I said above its only 1000 here and they have a fair market share maybe its the 2000 in the north that is a lot considering they have a much smaller population

jesus_thats_gre

What sort of revenues have they? Even better, what sorta revenus and staff numbers have they compared to Eircom. If there less efficiently run than Eircom I will have a wee giggle.

1huge1

Revenues I dont know but i'm sure ive heard of eircom numbers being well over 1000

Fitzee

All I can find is figures of over 7,000 for fixed line, plus the "agency" sales staff, plus meteor..... That's down a lot in recent years, 13,500 as little as five years ago! On BT, they don't look like going IMHO. Would be interesting to see the breakdown between the north and republic - revenues & profits...