Sir, - I am watching the Eircom sale negotiations with growing disbelief: it seems that shareholders, directors and commentators alike have accepted the inevitability of an outright sale of Eircom at a knockdown price. There is no apparent reason for the sale, especially given the low valuation of telecommunications companies at present. Can it be that the board is implicitly giving up and acknowledging that under their management Eircom will never deliver value to its shareholders? Perhaps I've simply grown cynical during my month-long wait to get my new phone line installed in the "ecommerce hub of Europe". Yours, etc.,
Alex French, Kingsland Parade, Portobello, Dublin 8.