Punters annoyed with their 30 per cent Eircom losses and angered with the generous pay and perks packages enjoyed by Alfie Kane and Malcolm Fallen might be interested to look at the suffering now being endured by shareholders in KPN, the Dutch telecom, whose decision to sell its 21 per cent of Eircom is one of the main causes of the current price debacle.

Just as Irish punters flocked to buy into Eircom, so too did Dutch investors once flock to buy into KPN, a supposedly high-grade telecom, which was guaranteed always to be in the top echelon of European telecoms.

Now, KPN shares have also gone through the floor and are currently 55 per cent off their March high.

KPN's problem is all down to the chaos of the German 3G mobile phone auction where a consortium, including KPN, successfully bid €8.4 billion for one of the licences. The only problem was that the other half of the consortium, Hutchinson Whampoa - former owners of Orange - pulled out shortly after the licence was awarded, saying the price was too high for a licence too limited in spectrum for the two operators to share.

Now KPN is faced with not only paying for the licence on its own, but also funding the capital investment required. Not surprisingly, KPN shares took a dive, with investors taking the view that KPN will have to go to the market for more money. "The market is saying that KPN is up the creek without a paddle," said one London-based analyst. "And that is not necessarily too far removed from reality."

KPN and its German 3G licence fiasco is another indication that normally sensible and cautious businessmen have lost the run of themselves when it comes to bidding for 3G licences, first in Britain and more recently in Germany. The prices for the British and German licences are likely to drive up 3G auction prices in France and Italy - to the extent that Morgan Stanley estimated this week that European 3G licence auctions could represent a transfer of €214 billion from shareholders to governments, or 25 per cent of the total value of the sector.

The mind-boggling sums being paid mean that many of Europe's blue-chip telecoms have had their ratings slashed by the likes of Moody's and S&P, meaning that borrowing to fund the licences and the accompanying networks is going to be more expensive.

Investors may become increasingly reluctant to fund investments that promise lots in umpteen years time, but little in terms of profits for a long time to come.

Auctions for mobile phone licences are now vehicles for national governments to raise buckets of money, while leaving the new 3G operators themselves with fewer resources.

So who will end up paying for the higher interest rates on the debt needed to set up 3G networks. Silly question that - who always ends picking up the tab when companies lose the run of themselves? The consumer, of course!

Digifone's Irish licence mightn't be of the 3G variety, but the £15 million that the now BT-owned operator paid for its current Irish licence seems to be the bargain of the century. Likewise, Alfie Kane's decision to pull Eircom out of the British 3G auction was in retrospect, a hugely sensible decision.