Telecommunications in the Republic of Ireland
Open-knowledge reference entry

Telecommunications in Ireland operate in a regulated competitive market that provides customers with a wide array of advanced digital services. This article explores Ireland's telecommunications infrastructure including: fixed and mobile networks, The voice, data and Internet services, cable television, developments in next-generation networks and broadcast networks for radio and television.
Regulation
Telecommunications, including radio frequency spectrum licensing and the postal sector, are regulated by the Commission for Communications Regulation (ComReg). ComReg was established on 1 December 2002. The Coimisiún na Meán is the regulator of both public and commercial broadcasting sector in Ireland. It was established on 15 March 2023, replacing the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland (BAI) (Irish: Údarás Craolacháin na hÉireann)
The Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment has overall responsibility for national policy and regulation of both telecommunications and broadcasting.
The telecommunications market in Ireland was opened to competition in 1998.
Eir's dominance has reduced and by Q3 2019 operators other than eir accounted for 61% of the Irish fixed voice market retail revenue and 54.7% market share by fixed-line retail and wholesale revenue and 80.9% of the mobile market (excluding mobile broadband and machine-to-machine subscriptions) or 84.4% of total subscriptions. Other operators accounted for 68.6% of retail fixed broadband subscriptions (comprising cable, FTTH, FTTC/VDSL and ADSL) and 57.3% of retail FTTP subscriptions
Eir remains the largest telecommunications company in Ireland, offering fixed, mobile, and broadband services. As Bord Telecom Éireann, the company was state owned until 1999, when it was floated on the Irish and New York Stock Exchanges.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Telecommunications in the Republic of Ireland” is open-knowledge reference entry. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Telecommunications, Republic and Ireland, not as a finished interpretation.
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This entry incorporates text from “Telecommunications in the Republic of Ireland” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.