Eircom NI, is the name of the company's operations in Northern Ireland.

In Northern Ireland, however, the opposite is the case, where BT Ireland still hold dominance as the former incumbent fixed-line telco, and Eircom NI is a new challenger, rolling out its own network.

By late 2007 Eircom added their 500 thousandth DSL subscriber but broadband share may have fallen to 44 % due to growth of fixed wireless, cable and fibre services.

Eircom have also completed a wholly owned fibre network ring around Northern Ireland and another around Belfast.

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.

As part of their mobile strategy, Eircom have also launched eMobile.

Babcock and Brown have since collapsed as a company and their BCM vehicle, which owns over 50 % of Eircom, broke all ties with the former parent and rebranded themselves as Eircom Holdings Limited.

Under a wholesale line rental scheme, it is possible for customers, to have a single bill from an alternative provider, for example, BT Ireland, including the cost of Eircom line rental, rather than continuing to receive a separate one from Eircom for this cost.

Eircom have thus far managed to come to an agreement with the companies involved, stating that they will be working in conjunction with these companies to prevent large amounts of copyrighted material being shared through the ISP.

: " The Order further provides that should the PirateBay website content be legitimatised in the future, then Eircom has liberty to apply to the Court to have the Order vacated and access to the PirateBay website enabled.

Since September 2009, the Pirate Bay website and trackers have remained blocked by Eircom.

Eircom notified that they have canceled a mandatory interest payment on their publicly traded, senior corporate bond maturing in 2016.

As an operator with significant market power, Eircom is required to provide a number of wholesale products to other operators and to switch calls onto other phone networks.

Eircom, Boston Scientific and Pacificare are significant employers in the region.

Eircom notified the public in February 2012 that they had ceasted honouring their debt and has thus entered default status and were unable to continue as a going concern.

Eircom operates the largest fixed-line telecommunications network in the Republic of Ireland, under licence from the Commission for Communications Regulation.

On 21 April 2008 18: 36, Eircom rejected claims by four major record companies that it, as the largest broadband internet service provider in the State, must bear some liability for the illegal free downloading of music by computer users.

It is also the third largest provider of cost-sensitive telecom services sector in Ireland, behind the incumbent operator Eircom and BT Ireland.

Smart was also a bidder for the Irish mobile operator Meteor following the decision of its parent company to sell all international mobile operators ; however on July 21, 2005 it was announced Smart Telecom had withdrawn, leaving the company to be bought by Eircom, the largest telecoms operator in Ireland, and owner of the local loop throughout the entire country.

They are now the 2nd largest provider of broadband in the Republic of Ireland with over 115, 000 customers after Eircom.

He remained a TD, being appointed a director in the formerly state owned recently privatized telecommunications company Eircom in 1999.

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 the Republic of Ireland ).

Eircom retains a virtual monopoly of around 70 %, on fixed-line telephony in the State ( the only exceptions being those operated by UPC Ireland cable company ( formerly NTL Ireland and Chorus ), Digiweb Metro and some fibre offerings from BT, Magnet Networks, Smart and Digiweb ).

Part of this takeover involved the assessment of all League of Ireland sides and the manner in which they were being run including finances, infrastructure, future plans, marketability and previous finishing positions since the 2002 season, ( this was due to Kildare County only joining the Eircom League in 2002 ).

In 2000, he and Eamon Dunphy championed the case of small shareholders of Eircom after shares in the former state-owned company dropped by more than a third in value in just over a year Ross took the Board of Directors to task over the level of salaries, bonuses and fees being paid and denounced a plan whereby senior management were to get share options at a value below the flotation price.

This has the effect of the smart service being slightly different from traditional POTS services through Eircom, mainly relating to dial tones and telephone ringing patterns.

This took place in the context of unmet sales targets of 64, 000 sign-ups, aggravated by Smart being unable to get its equipment into many Eircom exchanges which meant that Smart had no product to sell in many parts of Ireland.

He was part of the Valentia consortium that bought into Eircom, the former Irish state phone company, in November 2001, for € 2. 8 billion, beating a rival offer of € 300 billion.

Eventually in November 2001, the company agreed to a recommended offer of € 1. 335 per Eircom share.

On 14 July 2005 RTÉ News reported on their business website that Denis O ' Brien had withdrawn from bidding, and that it was understood that Eircom was the top bidder at € 410 million.

Eircom announced the agreement to purchase it on 25 July 2005 at a cost of € 420m.

In May 2006 it was announced that Eircom was to be sold to the Australian investment group Babcock and Brown in a deal worth € 2. 4 billion.

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.

In 2011 Eircom announced that they would invest € 100 million on high speed fibre optic lines which would be delivered as a pilot scheme to customers in Dublin and Wexford and the speeds will be 150Mbit / s the fastest in Ireland.

On October 2, 2006 Eircom, owed € 4m by Smart, including arrears of € 1. 7m, ceased providing wholesale services to Smart Telecom.

With the division based in Belfast, Eircom own and operate a fibre-optic network ring around Belfast and Northern Ireland, linking into the national Eircom Network in the rest of Ireland.

As against this, several state-run industries were also privatised – Eircom for instance.

IRMA and Eircom reached an agreement over file sharing which uses a third-party organisation to monitor Eircom users for downloading of pirated music.

On 9 July 2005, The Irish Times reported three bidders for Meteor: Eircom, Smart Telecom, and a consortium led by Denis O ' Brien.

Introduced in Ireland in 2001, CPS allows subscribers to use an alternative provider for all their calls, without the need to dial indirect access codes or numbers, although they still receive a bill from Eircom for line rental.

Unlike the UK, where BT's competitors now can charge less than BT for line rental, it is not yet possible for operators in Ireland to buy the lines from Eircom and charge their own rate for line rental, should they wish.

Eircom agreed to a controversial deal with the IRMA ( Irish equivalent of the RIAA ) to activate a " three strikes system " so it will ban users from the internet for 12 months if they appear to be downloading copyrighted content through peer to peer filesharing networks.

On March 29, 2012, a number of companies within the Eircom Group presented a petition to the Irish High Court for the appointment of an examiner.

In 2000, Vodafone made an offer for the company to Eircell's parent, eircom Plc., which saw the company demerge from Eircom plc into a separate plc, Eircell 2000 plc ( trading name: Eircell Vodafone ), which was then acquired by Vodafone.

Indigo still maintains its branding as it is a strong brand in Ireland, although it is now impossible to sign up for a new account and the Indigo website now primarily serves as a portal to Eircom services.