NTL - The New York-based cable company has rolled out its network in Northern Ireland and has already completed a £30 million (€38 million) fibre-optic ring between Britain and Ireland. Its 70,000 customers in the North are offered telephone rates at up to 15 per cent lower than those of British Telecom.
Esat - Esat's bid is made as a partner with Charter and Vulcan, two US companies owned or linked to the co-founder of Microsoft, Mr Paul Allen. Esat is already part of the Esat Digifone mobile phone company, and offers Irish businesses and householders telephone and Internet service.
TCI - TCI is the largest cable company in the US, and has telephone giant AT&T as its largest shareholder. Some 25 per cent of its bid is owned by Independent Newspapers, whose Princes Holdings subsidiary has 150,000 cable and MMDS customers. If it bought Cablelink, this would give the consortium a combined subscriber base of more than 500,000.
UPC - A Dutch company, UPC recently floated on the Nasdaq and has around 3.4 million subscribers in the Netherlands, France, Belgium, Austria and Norway. It is seen as being technologically advanced, and offers cable, Internet and telephony. A former shareholder in Princes Holdings, the company knows the Irish market quite well.
CMI - Cable Management Ireland is based in Dublin and has 60,000 subscribers. It is seen as an attractive company because it services areas growing in population, such as north Kildare and Wicklow. If CMI does not win the bidding war for Cablelink, it is likely to merge or be acquired with a larger company. If it does win, it has promised customers unlimited local phone calls for a fixed fee.
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