BT says bye bye to consumer broadband in Ireland

BT has abandoned the Irish consumer and small business broadband market. Instead, it will focus on what it sees as a more viable broadband market, big companies.

BT will transfer 84,000 consumers and 3,000 small businesses over to Vodafone, which now becomes a big player in the Irish broadband market.

And here's an interesting line from the release: "The value of the gross assets that are the subject of this transaction was €4.8 million at 31 March 2009."

No matter what way this is spun, this is a significant vote of no confidence in Irish consumer broadband by one of its biggest players.

Comments

[Gordon]

If you follow that logic, then BT has mugged Vodafone, which is now saddled with twice the consumer broadband numbers it had after it bought Perlico (http://www.rte.ie/business/2007/1113/perlico.html).
So does that make Voda a bunch of chumps? Hardly. Surely their new size now makes them a more effective competitor to Eircom in the consumer and small/medium business market.
And at least this latest deal is far better value for money as far as Voda is concerned if you compare the price paid per customer.
Plus, while BT poured a load of money into its consumer broadband marketing and probably made itself appear to be a bigger player as a result, my understanding is broadband was a relatively low percentage of their total business - somewhere less than 10 per cent I believe.
It'll be interesting to see now if Voda will start aggressively campaigning to win more customers at Eircom's expense.

[lisadom]

I hate BT, good riddance!
xx

[david]

bt fucked me out of my unlimited broadband limit now ive got a 100gb cap