It must be with some chagrin Meteor greeted the news that the High Court hearing between Orange and the Director of Telecommunications Regulation, Ms Etain Doyle, will not be heard until March.
Meteor was awarded the third mobile phone licence. Orange's bid was rejected. Orange has taken proceedings against the Regulator on the matter and this delayed issuing of the licence. An interim arrangement which would result in the licence being issued to Meteor, pending the outcome of the case, did not prove feasible. This proposal will be heard along with Orange's appeal in March.
It is all good news for current operators, Eircell and Esat Digifone, which between them have more than 700,000 customers.
Digifone's recent launch of its prepaid services to rival Eircell's Ready-to-Go service is reportedly doing well and will have 30,000 customers by the end of the year. It is also expected that Digifone will hit the 200,000 customer mark, on its contract GSM service by the end of the year.
Eircell has more than 200,000 Ready-to-Go customers and around 300,000 contract customers.
With Eircell and Digifone aggressively tackling the corporate and the cheaper sectors of the market, one wonders how much room will be left for the third operator. Industry analysts do not doubt Meteor's ability, but differentiating itself will not be easy.
