Research and Markets: A 2011 Ireland Telecoms, IP Networks, Digital Media and Forecasts Report: Ireland's Telecom Sector Remains Crucial to Economic Recovery

Research and Markets (http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/bc9dac/ireland_telecoms) has announced the addition of the "Ireland - Telecoms, IP Networks, Digital Media and Forecasts" report to their offering.

BuddeComm's publication, "Ireland - Telecoms, IP Networks, Digital Media and Forecasts," provides a comprehensive overview of the trends and developments in the telecommunications and digital media markets in Ireland, including operator and regulator data to the first quarter of 2011.

Ireland's Telecom Sector Remains Crucial to Economic Recovery

The poor economic climate continues to affect the Irish telecom market. Having underwritten some 50 billion worth of toxic debt accumulated by the three major banks, the government's mounting debts - compounded by low corporate tax and reduced income tax - obliged it to accept up to 85 billion as a bailout from the EU and IMF in late 2010.

A four-year economic plan was devised to drive down the country's deficit to 3% of GDP by the end of 2014 by cutting 15 billion off state spending. Ireland's last three budgets have already cut public spending by up to 14 billion. The government's indebtedness has made it difficult to honour its former pledges of public money to upgrade national telecoms networks, and so it has had to lean increasingly on the cash-strapped private sector.

Over the past six years or so changes in telecom sector revenue have mirrored economic output, and as the current recession has deepened both GNP and telecoms revenue have declined. Nevertheless, the contribution of the telecom sector to GDP has grown during the last two years, reaching about 2.5% by the second quarter of 2010, suggesting that telecoms is moderately healthier than other sectors of the economy.

Market Highlights:

• DSL is the principal broadband access technology, representing almost half of all fixed-line accesses, while cable accounts for only about 11%. The number of significant competitors remains small in this market, which the regulator needs to address in order to stimulate the provision of faster network speeds and cheaper prices for consumers.
• The MVNO market remains underdeveloped. Tesco Mobile was the first to launch as an MVNO, in 2007.
• An Post (Postfone) and JustMobile (from late-2010) are the only other contenders to MNOs. This sector also needs to be encouraged if Ireland's high mobile phone prices are to reach a par with the EU average. 3 Ireland is well positioned to host MVNOs since the extra bandwidth allocated to it was specifically intended to allow room for them on its network.
• LTE networks are not expected to become commercial until late 2011 or 2012. There has been little commercial investment in fibre in Ireland, leaving the principal fibre infrastructure to lie in backhaul.

Key Topics Covered:

• Key Statistics
• Telecommunications Market
• Regulatory Environment
• Fixed Network Operators
• Telecommunications Infrastructure
• Broadband Market
• Digital Media
• Mobile Communications
• Forecasts

For more information visit http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/bc9dac/ireland_telecoms.