The United States' largest cable company, Tele-Communications Inc (TCI), yesterday outlined its bid for Cablelink, and said it was ready to pay "hundreds of millions of pounds" for the State-owned firm.
TCI will control 75 per cent of TCI Ireland, a new company formed to make the bid; the remaining quarter share will be owned by Independent Newspapers.
Cablelink, which is 75 per cent per cent owned by Telecom Eireann and 25 per cent by RTE, is scheduled to be sold by May. With several telecommunications and cable companies known to be interested in purchasing the company, analysts say a price tag of £300 million (€380 million) would be reasonable.
Executives said if TCI was successful in buying Cablelink, it would spend another "several hundred million" pounds creating a broadband network across the Republic.
Within three years, they added, the company would be able to offer television, telephone and Internet services to more than 90 per cent of households.
The combined customer base of Cablelink and Princes Holdings, which is already owned jointly by TCI and Independent Newspapers, would be 500,000.
TCI Ireland's chairwoman, Ms Miranda Curtis, said she believed the company's financial strength, technological development, global reach and experience made it the frontrunner in the bidding for Cablelink. The coverage proposed by the new company would allow the development of new State-wide services, including e-mail and interactive education linked to the school curriculum.
The network, made up of both cable and wireless infrastructure, would also provide an Irish-based e-commerce hub which could put Irish businesses in touch with customers at home and abroad, said TCI Ireland's chief operating officer, Mr Bart Bonsall.
Executives denied that the 90 per cent coverage of the Republic's 1.2 million households would represent an effective monopoly or a dominant position, and said they would not expect a successful bid to be challenged.
Eireann, whose minimum call charges and line rental fees were among the highest in Europe.
It would also compete with Digico, the proposed terrestrial digital broadcast company.
TCI is currently being bought by AT&T for $48 billion (€44 billion), but the merger is being structured in a manner that allows the cable company - to be called Liberty - to operate at arms' length to the telephone giant.
