Eircom may be about to change hands for the fourth time in six years. On all bar one of the previous occasions the sellers reaped a handsome profit from their brief ownership of the Republic's fixed line telephone system. If the mooted bid from Swisscom is consummated, it will be no different this time. The Swiss government-owned telecoms company is expected to offer around €2.50 a share, which means a tidy profit for the institutions who bought shares at €1.55 when the company returned to the stock market just over a year ago.
Meanwhile, the Republic languishes near the bottom of the European league table for broadband penetration, which is increasingly seen as the bellwether of the competitiveness of a country's telecommunications infrastructure. The reasons for this state of affairs are manifold, but Eircom has played its part. The company's need to provide a return to its venture capitalist owners, and latterly its conventional shareholders, has limited the amount of money available for what is much needed investment.
Equally, the company has fought tooth and nail with the regulator to delay the opening up of its networks to competitors at attractive prices, arguing - from a commercial perspective - that allowing its rivals access is tantamount to cutting its own throat. Although Eircom's tardiness in this regard is understandable, it can hardly be seen to be in the national interest. Indeed, the Government - which sold the company in 1999 - has been forced to spend millions of euro building competing infrastructure.
It would be pleasing to think that a change of ownership might bring about a change of thinking at Eircom, but there are no real grounds for such optimism. Like any other investor Swisscom will seek a return on its quite considerable outlay. As a result, it is unlikely to call for a change in the defensive strategy that has served Eircom's current owners well. And, if anything, its track record in Switzerland indicates the contrary. The company has fought and won similar battles with the Swiss regulator. The key difference, however, is that Switzerland enjoys one of the highest levels of broadband penetration in Europe.
This raises the unedifying prospect of Ireland continuing to suffer a second-rate telecommunications system in order to allow Eircom pay dividends to its owner, who in this case will ultimately be the government of another European state. It is a long way from what was envisioned when the Government sold Telecom Éireann to the public six years ago.