There was further consolidation of the Irish Internet market on Friday with the Esat Telecom Group's acquisition of EUnet Ireland. Founded in 1991, EUnet Ireland is a key player in providing Internet services to the top end of the corporate market, and has been expanding its infrastructure rapidly.
In the past year alone, its base of dedicated leased line and ISDN customers grew by 160 per cent, while the number of Web hosted customers increased by 120 per cent.
"Esat Telecom's local, national and international fibre optic links, which are now under construction, will provide an ideal platform to offer integrated internet services through the acquisition of EUnet Ireland," its chairman, Denis O'Brien, said on Friday night.
The first section of Esat's fibre-optic network in Dublin recently went live and includes managed bandwidth services, business voice services and broadband LAN interconnect. ATM, frame relay and disaster recovery will be made available through the network shortly.
An Post's subsidiary PostGEM - Ireland's largest Internet service provider since its takeover of Ireland OnLine - announced last week that it has become "the first Irish ISP to break the 3MB per second barrier for Internet traffic"
Meanwhile Telecom continues its expansion in the Internet services market through Tinet, the recently acquired Indigo, and Cablelink. The latter is to seek Cabinet approval of a £100 million plan to provide home banking, video-on-demand and online shopping to homes in Galway, Waterford and Dublin. Neither Telecom Eireann (which owns 75 per cent of Cablelink) nor RTE (the other 25 per cent) can afford the full development costs.
Another reminder that major international players might also be digging up a pavement near you: Ulster Bank is the first corporation in Ireland to avail of WorldCom's £10-million fibre-optic network in Dublin. The first phase went live last week.
Dublin's first PC World store was officially opened at the weekend in Blanchardstown Retail Park. It employs 70 staff and carries over 5,000 product lines. It is part of the Dixons Group, which has three other stores in Dublin and 10 in Northern Ireland.
The European Commission has singled out two Irish firms in its three best examples of multimedia/Internet use by small and medium enterprises. In the Info2000 programme, Kenny's Bookshop in Galway and C.P. Productions from Lisburn, Co Antrim - a manufacturer of framed prints and mirrors - and a bespoke tailor from Koln beat off 15 other contesting firms.
The number of Irish exporters with Web sites has grown by 50 per cent since An Bord Trachtala began its "Internet for Exporters" campaign earlier this year. Oliver Tattan, its chief executive, gave the figures at the launch of its Web site (www.irishtrade.ie). It includes a search engine and a database directory in six languages of more than 3,000 Irish exporters.
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