broadband: October 2006 Archives

According to today's Sunday Business Post there is a chance that Smart may merge with Imag!ne. The story could be pure speculation, but it does leave a lot of questions unanswered. Smart's business had more than one string to its bow and included several corporate accounts, whereas Imag!ne seems to have focussed more on the domestic market.

Following on the disconnection / removal of service by Eircom it looks like the other ISPs and Telcos maybe tempted to "save" Smart customers. The CEO of Imag!ne, Brian O’Donohoe, is quoted on Breakingnews as saying:

It is clear that Eircom believes that, with its dominant position, it can act with immunity without fear of any reaction from Comreg or the Government. "This comes as no surprise as Eircom has successfully blocked competitors from entering the Broadband Market for over two years while other markets have experienced substantial growth and consumers have benefited from competition. "Imagine now calls for the Minister to face up to the fact that the competitive market is failing at the expense of consumers and the economy. "

Full story They've also setup a special telephone line to reconnect Smart clients.. though whether that will mean changing telephone numbers again or not was not clear...

Irish ISP Smart Telecom has been in trouble of late. However up until today those issues had not had a direct impact on their customers. According to media reports this evening the troubled company has been having credit issues with one of its providers Eircom. The end result being that Eircom has withdrawn service which means that Smart's clients cannot make phonecalls! Full story