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 The new name for Esat comes as no surprise because, in a well-publicised effort, Esat has spent much of the last three months more closely uniting itself with its parent company. "We have spent the last three months getting our focus right," Bill Murphy, chief executive officer of Esat BT, said at a press conference on Wednesday. He went on to emphasise that the new name will combine the local association clients and consumers have with Esat with the strength an internationally connected telecom such as BT brings to the table.
Ben Verwaayen, the chief executive officer of BT, who was also on hand at the press conference, made similar remarks about the closer union between the two companies, adding "It's important to know that Ireland is important to us." The two executives also reiterated Esat BT's commitment to all aspects of its existing business; this includes the provision of data and voice services to residential consumers, a segment that was recently mired by rumours predicting that the firm would quit the residential business.
Looking forward the two executives talked about Esat BT's plans for broadband rollout, claiming that the company was on track to gain access to 40 Eircom exchanges by the end of the year, meeting its ADSL goals. Murphy also said the company was looking very closely at flat-rate Internet and hoped to launch a product in the coming months.
However, the pair were reluctant to discuss specific targets for growth, other than confirming BT's deadline for an EBITDA breakeven at Esat BT by March 2003. Instead of offering specific commitments, the chief executives said that Esat BT, like the BT group as a whole, wants to be sustainably profitable and more customer focused, and they admitted that these objectives were something that had been lost in previous years. "We want to establish ourselves as a clear number two to Eircom," Murphy said. "We also want to ensure a competitive market in Ireland," Verwaayen added.
Indeed, the company does seem to have a new feel to it. Over the past three months the firm has launched ADSL and announced what appears to be its primary strategy of attracting the top 300 multi-site corporate clients in Ireland. As part of its offering to such big customers, the firm has announced new interconnections with BT networks in Northern Ireland and Britain, as well as its ability to serve customers on an almost global basis. The company's e-business consultancy, Labyrinth, has also refocused along these lines.
Murphy and Verwaayen were careful not to criticise Eircom in their remarks, and they even offered praise to Philip Nolan, the chief executive at Eircom, for the "good work he is doing there." They went on to say that they look forward to the regulatory changes that the Communications Bill will bring about, and Murphy said he is meeting with the new e-Minister, Mary Hanafin, next week to discuss a number of issues relating to BT Esat's role in the future of Ireland.
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