Many thousands of BT Ireland home and small business customers whose accounts are to be transferred to Vodafone will be tied to Vodaphone under a major agreement unveiled yesterday between the two firms, and will not be able to terminate their existing contracts once the move takes place.
BT has decided to leave the Irish home retail telephone and broadband market. Its 84,000 home customers will soon be part of Vodafone's fixed-line customer portfolio. Also its 3,000 BT small business customers will be transferred to Vodafone's existing fixed-line service in the coming months.
Vodafone's total fixed-line customer base increases to more than 170,000 customers with this deal, making it the second-biggest player in the Irish telecommunications market after Eircom. Vodafone will also increase to having 15 percent of the country's fixed-line broadband internet consumers.
This agreement which is still needing clearance from the Competition Authority, also includes an commitment from British Telecom to upgrade a further 58 phone exchanges around the republic. In doing this it can allow more of the population to access its modern high-speed internet services.
Already BT has unbundled 22 exchanges. BT will then sell its Irish wholesale broadband capacity to Vodafone, which will then in turn market it to fixed-line customers.
This part of the deal will make further impact on revenue at Eircom, challenging the already embattled telecoms company. Of BT's 84,000 home users, about 80pc of them use broadband services that BT buys from Eircom at a wholesale basis. Once these new exchanges are upgraded by BT, the amount of wholesale fixed-line internet services that Vodafone will have to source from Eircom will drastically decline
BT has decided to leave the Irish home retail telephone and broadband market. Its 84,000 home customers will soon be part of Vodafone's fixed-line customer portfolio. Also its 3,000 BT small business customers will be transferred to Vodafone's existing fixed-line service in the coming months.
Vodafone's total fixed-line customer base increases to more than 170,000 customers with this deal, making it the second-biggest player in the Irish telecommunications market after Eircom. Vodafone will also increase to having 15 percent of the country's fixed-line broadband internet consumers.
This agreement which is still needing clearance from the Competition Authority, also includes an commitment from British Telecom to upgrade a further 58 phone exchanges around the republic. In doing this it can allow more of the population to access its modern high-speed internet services.
Already BT has unbundled 22 exchanges. BT will then sell its Irish wholesale broadband capacity to Vodafone, which will then in turn market it to fixed-line customers.
This part of the deal will make further impact on revenue at Eircom, challenging the already embattled telecoms company. Of BT's 84,000 home users, about 80pc of them use broadband services that BT buys from Eircom at a wholesale basis. Once these new exchanges are upgraded by BT, the amount of wholesale fixed-line internet services that Vodafone will have to source from Eircom will drastically decline
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