ComReg suspects Eircom’s promotional offer was targeted at Virgin Media customers and would not have been approved, even if properly notified
ComReg has issued an urgent interim measures notice to halt Eircom’s promotional pricing
On 17 October 2025, ComReg issued an urgent interim measures notice to Eircom regarding its recent promotional offer to end users requesting service via the former Irish incumbent’s fibre network. The notice references an offer announced by Eircom to encourage new customers to take-up full fibre services through retail providers operating via its Open Eir fibre network. The regulator exercised its authority under Section 57 of the Communications Regulation to issue interim measures to prevent or quickly address regulatory breaches that may cause serious economic or operational harm to competitors in reference to the obligations placed on Eircom as an operator with significant market power (SMP) in ComReg’s most recent market review. Through its notice, ComReg instructs Eircom to cease its promotional offering with immediate effect; however, the regulator will accept submissions from the operator regarding the offer and notes that these submissions may inform the regulator’s decision to confirm, vary or revoke its notice in the future.
Eircom offered a gift card incentive direct to end users taking up a full fibre connection via the Open Eir network
On October 9 2025, Eircom announced a promotion in which it would offer new customers a €50 (£43) gift card to other retailers, including JustEat and Boots, when they signed up for a full fibre tariff with a retail ISP wholesaling from the Open Eir fibre network. The promotion was targeted to nearly 80,000 premises in areas of low fibre penetration and didn’t require any active participation from retail ISPs – customers were instructed to claim their gift card directly through an Eircom website after their new fibre service went live. According to ComReg, this promotion, in practice, required retail providers to place an order through Open Eir for a wholesale fibre to the premises (FTTP) product, namely virtual unbundled access (FTTP-VUA), to fulfill end user requests. The gift card, in ComReg’s analysis, represented a price reduction on that product, borne by Open Eir and delivered directly to the consumer. The offer was also planned to be time-limited, running only from 13 October 2025 to 23 November 2025, meaning it met both conditions in ComReg’s definition of a “promotion”.
The operator failed to notify and gain approval of its offer, in violation of its SMP obligations in the WLA market
According to ComReg’s latest wholesale local access (WLA) market review, Eircom is not permitted to offer a discount or promotion on its FTTP-VUA product without express prior approval from the regulator. If notified, promotions are analysed against four criteria, all of which must be met in order to receive regulatory approval:
The proposed pricing with the promotion takes account of any applicable price floors;
The promotion does not favour Eircom’s retail arm and is available to a range of access seekers;
The promotion is not targeted at a specific geography and does not result in a geographic differentiation of pricing; and
The promotion does not negatively impact investment or competition.
Given that Eircom did not notify ComReg of its planned promotion prior to launching it, the regulator did not have the opportunity to consider its compliance with these criteria in order to grant approval. In detailing its decision to instruct the immediate end of the promotion, ComReg discussed Eircom’s failure to notify the promotion as a direct breach of obligations as well as the timeliness of the potential harm of the promotion to competitors. However, the regulator goes further in noting the likelihood that the promotion would not have satisfied the relevant criteria and likely would not have been approved if notified. The targeted nature of Eircom’s promotional plan, which under preliminary analysis, appears to be specifically targeted at Virgin Media customers, would likely have violated the condition around geographic differentiation. The operator is now expected to cease further registrations to its promotion immediately but is not limited in its ability to pay out on the promised gift cards to end users that previously registered.
