Fon.es & Swisscom & Eircom - here’s a crazy idea. at RunningWithBulls.com

Fon.es & Swisscom & Eircom - here’s a crazy idea.

Published by bbt October 23rd, 2005 in bernard, internet, irishblogs, runningwithbulls.com, tech, websites, wifi

After finding out about Fon.es via a number of sources last night..I decided to keep an interest in Fon and Martin Varsavsky, because they sounded like they were onto something good (and if has already built 3 Internet companies in Spain, well he must know about something!).

This morning I see from Martin Varsavsky’s blog that he is in talks with Swisscom close to selling 50% of it to them:

“FON is my company. I own it 100%… so far. I am close to selling 50% of FON to Swisscom. Swisscom is a $20bn market cap telco with some unique features, the most noticeable being that it has no debt. Other than that and more relevant to me Swisscom owns Eurospot, the largest owner of wifi hotsptos in Europe.”

Last night, I was thinking about Fon, and how polar opposite they were to the likes of Eircom, the Irish incumbent telco.

It then dawned on me, Swisscom had been *allegedly* in “informal talks with Eircom in the past few weeks.

Moreover, Swisscom had been on of the companies awarded a wireless license in Ireland in 2003. From Irish Times article (sorry its subscription based) dated Friday March 02 2003, writes Jamie Smyth:

“SwissCom Eurospot entered the Irish telecoms market when it acquired another pan-European wireless operator, Megabeam Networks, in March. Megabeam was subsequently awarded an Irish telecoms licence, which will will now transfer to SwissCom Eurospot.

A spokeswoman for SwissCom Eurospot said it would continue to expand into the Irish and British markets following its acquisition of Megabeam Networks…….

SwissCom Eurospot currently provides high-speed internet access to business travellers in key venues such as hotels, conference centres and airports. It has 400 hotspots under contract and, together with roaming partners, will offer a similar service at 800 European sites.”

In an article (again sorry, subscription only) dated Friday October 07 2005 (2 weeks ago) is was reported:

The speculation was sparked by a newspaper report claiming that Swiss operator Swisscom had approached Eircom in recent weeks with a view to bidding €3 billion for the company.

The company denied that it was in talks with Swisscom in a statement yesterday, saying: “The company confirms that it is not currently in discussions with that company or any other in relation to a possible offer.”

Swisscom did make informal contact with Eircom about a possible approach several months ago but talks ended at an early stage, according to sources. The potential approach was made within the last year at a time when Swisscom was actively seeking acquisitions across Europe.

Even if this was completely untrue its a pity. It would be a really smart thing for Eircom’s owners to do. Unless they have any intention of making something out of Eircom, they would have had a company, with no real debts, willing to pay €3Bn for Eircom.

There might then be a possibility of Fon, or a Fon -like service coming to Ireland, and thus changing the attitude to WiFi/broadband Internet and the idea of sharing your Internet connection.

Ireland could be dragged into the real Internet world if all the above happens. I would love to see that happening.

Anyone think I’m crazy?

4 Responses to “Fon.es & Swisscom & Eircom - here’s a crazy idea.”

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1 Antoin O Lachtnain Oct 24th, 2005 at 1:23 pm

Honestly, Bernard, surely you read about this on my weblog first?! http://www.eire.com/2005/10/15/martin-varsavskys-plan-to-liberate-the-online-world/#comments Oh ye of little faith. When you read it in some fancy-schmancy bay-area linkfest, you think it’s great.
2 Antoin O Lachtnain Oct 24th, 2005 at 1:27 pm

One other thing: there wouldn’t be any benefit for eircom’s owners in selling to a company that didn’t have any debt. They would probably pay in cash anyway. It wouldn’t make any difference for customers either.
3 bbt Oct 24th, 2005 at 2:24 pm

Hi Antoin,

Yes I did read it here. When I was scanning through my feedreader I saw the heading, and tbh, I actually thought it was about freeworlddialup.com.

I know FWD and FON have two different letters, but, well it was a quick scan.

BUT! To be fair to me, I did mention I read it here, on this post:
http://www.runningwithbulls.com/blog/2005/10/22/fones-spanish-isp-wants-its-customers-to-share-wifi/ saying: “Actually now that as I write this, I remember reading this on Antoin’s eire.com site, about Martin Varsavsky. ”

So, I am vindicated!

Please forgive me
bernard
4 bbt Oct 24th, 2005 at 2:28 pm

About selling Eircom to Swisscom, well I guess it might not be of any intereset to have a company with 0 debt buying Eircom.
But at least it would make those boys €€CASH€€.

About it not making any difference to the customers…well if the parent company had a different philosophy to Eircom’s “don’t share philosophy” well that *might* permeate though to Eircom.

One can but wish and hope.

b