It's looking likely in Ireland now that eircom's going to sell its retail arm and recently acquired mobile arm (Meteor). The idea being, Babcock and Brown (The company that owns most of it) would retain the lucrative wholesale and infrastructure part as it would make it less of a complex regulatory scenario.
Many commentators think that this is preparing the ground for sneeky little change of infrastructure over to a next generation network that would squeeze out the competition.
i.e. a move to fiber-to-the-kerb architecture i.e. lots and lots of little cabinets at local level housing the line cards and subscriber equipment sitting on big fiber optic circuits. Everything based on IP and basically eliminating the need for local exchanges (central offices).
It would look a lot more like a cable company's network topology.
They're also rumoured to be considering cashing in on a lot of property i.e. the local exchanges in the major urban centres while the value of the property is still insanely high. So, it's a win-win situation for eircom and not necessarily all that good for competition..
Remains to see what will happen.
