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Eircom Limited, trading as Eir ( ; stylised eir), is a large fixed, mobile and broadband telecommunications company in Ireland. The company, which is currently incorporated in Jersey, traces its origins to Ireland's former state monopoly telecommunication provider Telecom Éireann and its predecessors, P&T (the Dept. of Posts and Telegraphs) and before the foundation of the state, the telecommunications division of the GPO. It remains the largest telecommunications operator in Ireland and has overseas operations focused on the business and corporate telecom markets in the United Kingdom. The company was in majority state ownership until 1999, when it was privatised through a flotation on the Irish and New York Stock Exchanges.
Eir is currently majority owned by Xavier Niel's Iliad SA and his Paris-based NJJ Holding investment fund (64.5%).. The group includes French telecommunications provider Free Telecom and Iliad Italia. Other major investors include Anchorage Capital Group (26.6%), and Davidson Kempner (8.9%).
Eir operates a wholesale fixed-line network through its Open Eir unit, providing copper and fibre based access products to a wide range of Irish telecommunications companies. Its services include next generation access products, such as FTTH, FTTC (VDSL) and legacy copper based services, including ADSL and classic digital circuit switched products like PSTN and ISDN. It also offers a range of legacy leased line services.
The company's retail division markets these services directly to homes and businesses, and includes value added services like Eir TV and voice over broadband for home users and a wide range of digital services tailored to business customers.
Eir operates a national mobile network both under its own Eir brand and GoMo, a value-focused, online-only sub-brand. The network provides 2G, 3G, 4G and 5G services and ancillary services such as Mobile VoIP and VoLTE.
Its main fixed access infrastructure owning competitors are Virgin Media Ireland (which operates a Cable television and broadband network) and SIRO, a joint venture between publicly owned energy supplier, ESB Group and Vodafone Ireland. SIRO operates a FTTH network using ESB's physical infrastructure to carry fibres to individual homes and businesses. Imagine Communications, Digiweb and several other smaller ISPs also operate their own wireless networks using various technologies. Eir also faces retail competition from Vodafone, Sky Ireland, Digiweb and a large number of smaller ISPs using a mix wholesale access from Open Eir and SIRO to reach their customers.
Eir also faces competition from mobile operators and MVNOs both for its own mobile services and also as fixed line replacement products. All mobile operators are capable of offering very competitive voice services and high speed 4G and increasingly 5G connectivity, which can often be faster than fixed services, particularly first generation NGA products using VDSL and fibre to cabinet, which can only offer a maximum of 100 Mbit/s. ADSL services which are much slower again. 4G and 5G fixed-mobile services, using routers and external antennae have also become viable competitors in many rural and quasi rural areas. These offer ample and affordable data plans and very high speeds and a number of operators have designed products targeting homes and businesses using both existing mobile and dedicated LTE and 5G networks.
Eir's mobile arm provides a full range of 2G, 3G, 4G and 5G-based mobile communication services throughout Ireland. Its GSM network operates at 1800 MHz and 900 MHz ranges, as the earlier GSM licences fully utilised the 900 MHz band. GPRS and EDGE data services are also available. Eir mobile provide both bill pay (contract) and prepay (non-contract) plans and has approximately 19% of the Irish mobile market, with 1,032,000 cellular subscribers on the Eir Mobile network. The company has used EDGE technology on its network and has received a 3G (UMTS) license, formally removed from Eir's competitor, Smart Telecom.
As an operator with significant market power, Eir is required to provide a number of wholesale products to other operators and to switch calls onto other phone networks. Many broadband products offered by other operators are resales of the Eir product.
Telecom Éireann was privatised; the process began in 1995, and by July 1999 the government had disposed of virtually all of its shareholding. This was very controversial and subject to much debate. Eircom plc was then floated on the Irish, London and New York Stock Exchanges on 8 July 1999, and small/first-time investors were encouraged by the Irish Government to buy shares. The share price was set at €3.90, later reaching a high of €4.80, a 23% increase. Those initial investors who held onto their shares, until July 2000, received a 4% bonus-share allocation.
The Eircom flotation is considered to have been an example of a stock market bubble — after the initial hype of the flotation died down, the stock price fell rapidly. Many of the 500,000 small investors were angered by the significant financial loss they incurred, blaming the government for not sufficiently warning them of the risks inherent in stock-market investment.
Although EU laws required the opening of the Irish telecommunications market, Ireland had a derogation from competition until 2003. Eircom was designated by ComReg as the organisation with ownership of the National Directory Database (NDD) and a Universal White Pages (UWP) directory; the unit within Eircom responsible for providing these was the National Directory Information Unit (NDIU).
From 1991 to 2013, Eir's subsidiaries included Phonewatch, then known as Eircom Phonewatch, which provides home monitoring services, monitored burglar alarm, fire alarms, CCTV systems, and medical alert devices. In May 2013, it announced that Phonewatch had been sold to Oslo-based company, Sector Alarm Corporation.
From 1999 to 2006 sponsored RTE Weather and from 2000 to 2008, Eircom sponsored the League of Ireland.
After the sale of Eircell, Eircom itself was believed to be undervalued and became the subject of a bidding war between two consortia: the E-Island consortium headed by Denis O'Brien, and the Valentia Consortium headed by Tony O'Reilly, the chairman of Independent News and Media. Eventually in November 2001, the company agreed to a recommended offer of €1.335 per Eircom share. Eircom Plc was delisted from the stock exchange, became Eircom Limited, a private limited company by shares and a subsidiary of Valentia, and O'Reilly took the reins as Executive chairman.
On 19 March 2004, the company returned to the stock market (although the company being listed, Eircom Group plc, was in fact a new holding company, and was registered in England and Wales rather than in Ireland). The company floated at €1.55 a share, but dipped on initial trading before recovering to trade above its float price.
In May 2006, Eircom announced its sale to the Australian investment group Babcock & Brown as part of a deal worth €2.4 billion. The Employee Share Ownership Trust, which represents workers at the company, was to remain a minority shareholder. The sale was approved by shareholders on 26 July 2006, and at close of business on 17 August 2006, the shares were delisted from the Official Lists of the Irish Stock Exchange and the London Stock Exchange, ending Eircom's second period on the stock markets. The same day, Phillip Nolan resigned as chief executive of Eircom, and on 1 September Rex Comb was officially named as the new CEO. Tony O'Reilly resigned as chairman and was replaced by Pierre Danon, previously of BT Group plc and JP Morgan Chase. Babcock & Brown have since collapsed as a company and their BCM vehicle, which owns over 50% of Eir, broke all ties with the former parent and rebranded themselves as Eircom Holdings Limited.
Eircom was also successful in bidding for a 4G LTE License from Comreg, which permitted Meteor and eMobile to launch 4G services in 2013. ComReg reveals 4G auction results – €450m instant windfall for Irish Govt – Ireland’s communications news service – . Siliconrepublic.com (15 November 2012).
On 29 March 2012, a number of companies within the Eircom Group presented a petition to the Irish High Court for the appointment of an Examinership. The examinership lasted until 11 June 2012; the restructuring removed €1.7 billion of debt from the balance sheet, a reduction of 40% of group debt.
In September 2015, Eircom announced that it would re-brand as eir as part of a new imaging campaign developed by Moving Brands. Described as being "dynamic and modern", the new brand was adopted across most of Eircom's businesses (excluding Meteor), and an advertising campaign was introduced to promote the new name and slogan, "Live life on eir".
In December 2017, Iliad SA announced that it would be acquiring a 32.9% stake in the company with an option to take control of the Irish operator through a call option, which is exercisable in 2024.
In May 2021, it was announced that eir Sport would cease operations by the end of 2021.
Eircom purchased Ireland's 3rd mobile network, Meteor in 2005 initially operating it as a separate brand, with a secondary brand eMobile used to complement Eircom landline products.
The Meteor brand was subsequently dropped, and the mobile network became a core part of the main Eir brand.
As Eircom, Eir joined a consortium with TV3 Group, Arqiva, and Setanta Sports called OneVision to apply for the Commercial licence for DTT. On 1 May 2009 Fintan Drury, chairman of the OneVision consortium, announced that OneVision was to enter negotiations with the BCI, with the view to take over operations of the Irish pay DTT service. It was hoped that the launch of OneVision would happen in late 2010/early 2011 at a proposed operation cost of €40 million. OneVision aspired to offer 23 channels coinciding with the free-to-air channels. However, OneVision subsequently dropped out of negotiations with the BCI.
In 2013 Eir began providing a TV service along with its Eir Fibre service called Eir Vision.
The company is the third largest player in the Irish mobile market, with 23% of the market, behind Three Ireland 29.3% and Vodafone Ireland 33.9% (These figures exclude mobile broadband and machine to machine communications).
Eircom announced in June 2007 that from 30 July line rental charges would increase by €1.18 bringing line rental charges - already the most expensive in Europe - to a total of €25.36 per month for a PSTN analogue line, one source indicated it was the highest line-rental charge in the world. Also announced was an increase of between 4.8 and 4.9% on local and national calls. electricnews.net 15-06-2007
In March 2011, Eircom pleaded guilty to a breach of the Data Protection Act at the Dublin District Court.
On 12 April 2018, Eir announced that they would cut 750 jobs. This would mean that 10,000 jobs would have been lost since its peak number of jobs of 13,000 The job cuts came just days after the takeover of the company by French entrepreneur Xavier Niel.
As of 5 December 2013, Eir users who try to access The Pirate Bay receive the following message:
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