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Eir has achieved nearly 70pc of its 1.9m FTTP roll-out target in Ireland.
Eircom, the country’s largest broadband provider, has captured more than 66pc of the fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) market, while its key competitor, Siro, saw its share decline to 27pc.
In its market monitoring report, ComReg, the Irish communications regulator, has provided insights into the developments in the retail and wholesale fixed broadband market. According to the regulator, much of the market developments follow its expectations.
As the country’s largest broadband provider, Eir’s FTTP offering has already spread to more than 1.3m premises in Ireland – continuing to overtake its competitors in the market. As of Q3 2024, the company has achieved nearly 70pc of its 1.9m FTTP roll-out target in Ireland.
Eir is succeeding in most facets of the fixed broadband retail and wholesale market that ComReg analysed. Following Eir, Siro surpassed 609,000 FTTP premises, National Broadband Ireland (NBI) passed 300,000 premises and Virgin Media passed 336,000 premises in the country. Meanwhile, Eir’s take-up rate also remains the highest at 37pc, followed by NBI at nearly 33pc and Siro at more than 31pc.
ComReg noticed that the uptick in FTTP adoption resulted in a decline in copper, fibre-to-the cabinet (FTTC) and cable broadband services. This is reflected in Eir’s ‘next generation’ market share – including both FTTP and FTTC services – which fell from 84pc to 78pc. Meanwhile, Siro’s share increased to nearly 18pc.
Last December, ComReg reported that Eir had the highest revenue share of the country’s communications market that quarter at 39pc. Meanwhile, seven other companies, including Virgin Media Ireland, Vodafone and BT Ireland, together made up 43.8pc market.
However, Eir was fined €2.8m by ComReg in 2024 due to a failure to allow other operates access to infrastructure records. While in 2018, Eir agreed to pay €3m in penalty to settle a case taken against it by ComReg over allegations that it favoured its own retail division when it came to granting access and repairing lines.
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