Despite pulling out of the National Broadband Plan (NBP), Eir has pledged to work with contractors chosen by the Government to deliver high-speed broadband to every address in the country.

"Eir withdrew from the NBP tender process in early 2018, but remains committed to supporting the remaining bidder Enet in making Eir’s infrastructure ready and available for the delivery of the NBP," the company said in the presentation of its annual results this Tuesday.

The former State company owns the existing lines connecting individual homes and businesses to the network and there have been concerns over access and cost to use these for the NBP.

'As soon as possible'

"We are allocating significant resources in order to provide this support and will continue to do so, to help realise the shared ambition of high-speed broadband for all homes and businesses as soon as possible," Eir said.

Negotiations continue between the Department of Communications and Enet, the sole remaining bidder to deliver the NBP. Minister Denis Naughten said recently that he still expected to announce the contract this year.

Meanwhile, Eir is continuing its own commercial roll-out of high-speed fibre connections to part of the rural population, reporting coverage of 1.8m premises or 76% of all Irish homes and businesses at this point.

The Government target is 77% by the end of this year.

Change of focus

NJJ and Iliad, the companies of French telecommunications tycoon Xavier Niel, have now completed their takeover of Eir and the ownership change has seen its focus move away from its traditional landline business and move towards mobile.

"As the NJJ philosophy beds down in Eir and we refocus our efforts on what we do best, we have seen an expected decline in our low margin business as well as traditional access line decreases, driving a revenue decline of 2% for the year," said Eir's chief financial officer Stephen Tighe.

The company's EBITDA margin rose by 2% last year, but took a hit in the fourth quarter due to €3m in additional costs caused by Storm Ophelia.

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