The dream that once was eircom was that a 75-year-old semi-state company could be transformed into the major national broadband provider through the combination of union/worker ownership and private capital. That dream now seems to be well and truly dead. What put the nail in the coffin in the last week or so is that eircom’s cable competitor, UPC, is now offering 12 Mbps speeds as its entry-level broadband service. This means that UPC’s cheapest broadband package is faster than eircom’s most expensive.
This is bad, but it isn’t necessarily fatal. Eircom can come out of this, but it will require some big steps.