Smart for homes in broadband shake-up

SMART TELECOM vowed to shake up the broadband market yesterday after the phone and internet operator said it doubled revenues last year to €25 million.

The company said that it would extend its reach to include some €1.2 million residential broadband customers after focussing on the business market over the past year.

Smart has 150 corporate customers in Cork and Dublin but also provides fixed-line phone services to 70,000 homes, as well as operating one of the country’s biggest networks of public call boxes.

Chief executive Oisín Fanning said the “radical” new product offered high-speed internet access that was four times faster than most rivals’ basic services.

Rollout of the service will begin immediately and will take in Dublin and Cork at first, before targeting over 60 locations nationwide before the end of June.

The service, which will also include Smart’s fixed-line home phone package, will cost €35 per month but the company will pay the €24 monthly phone line rental charge for the first 100,000 customers who sign up, leaving a net cost of €11.

Mr Fanning said Ireland lagged near the bottom of the table of EU countries for broadband availability and that “a major step change” was needed to encourage take-up.

Ireland currently has 100,000 broadband connections but this would be closer to 500,000 if similar penetration rates to other EU countries had been achieved, the company said.

Product manager Garfield Connolly said that the 512-kilobyte broadband deals on offer from competitors would be too slow to match technological developments in the future and that Smart’s two-megabyte service represented “true” broadband.

Mr Fanning said the company’s technology was a generation ahead of rivals and that this, coupled with low staffing overheads, allowed it to compete with existing deals.

The company, which employs 330 people, also reported pre-tax losses of €10.7 million yesterday, despite a surge in revenues. Costs incurred in taking on new customers and investing in new technology were behind the losses.

Smart floated on the London Stock Exchange’s Alternative Investment Market (AIM) last year, raising €15m in fresh funding.

It also set up a €20m fund to finance its investment programme.

Smart shares rose 0.25p to 36.25p yesterday, more than double its 15p flotation price.