The Australian investment juggernaut is fronted by people who are pleasant enough. Their executives are refreshingly quotable.

They turn up early on weekends to radio studios and review the papers. They let it be known that when they meet informally with their newfound allies at Eircom's Employee Share Ownership Trust (Esot) they take the informality to truly Antipodean lengths, in T-shirts and trainers. At this rate they'll turn up to the press conference announcing their successful purchase of Eircom toting surfboards and wearing sandals.

Corporate raiders of the Gordon Gecko school they are not, sartorially speaking at least. And under the suntans and smiles are sharks to be sure. But it's not that the likes of executive director Robert Topfer and co are trying to fool anybody about the true nature of their business.

They are no strangers to sharp practice when necessary, as John Mulligan outlines inside today's Tribune Business.

Unless you happen to be an Esot beneficiary or an Eircom shareholder or happen to take a greater interest in the telecoms sector than is strictly healthy, the exotic financial machinations that underpin B&B's 2.36 billion bid are unlikely to hold your attention for a sustained period of time. The illstarred original Telecom Eireann flotation saw to that, souring the national attitude towards equities generally and pushing punters back towards investments more likely to realise a return, like that 25to-1 nag who's likely due a break this Tuesday at Punchestown.

There is, however, an issue that hinges on the fate of Eircom which concerns anyone who cares about the country's economic future . . .how the company proceeds with a strategy on broadband. Ireland sits near the bottom of the OECD league table on broadband penetration, with under 5% of the country having access to the internet at anything approaching the speed of thought.

How B&B's plan to split up Eircom into its retail and network businesses will affect future broadband development is unclear. For years the telco has managed to avoid taking the steps that would have made broadband more available and competitive in the country, such as the muchtouted mandate to achieve so-called local loop unbundling.

By accident or design, this delay has left Eircom with a still-dominant market position that is almost unique in Europe among former state monopoly phone companies.

It's precisely this position that makes Eircom such an attractive target for B&B.

It's not something that the company is particularly eager to see change, either.

With revealing candour, Robert Topfer said as much.

The Irish economy is relatively small and the telecoms sector is unlikely to get competition at the network level, " he said in February.

He later went even further in a chat with the Irish Times. The regulator is sitting in a position where it's currently fighting with Eircom constantly, and losing, " he said. The solution for the regulator is to say:

'Let's accept that there isn't going to be any network competition and that the competition is going to be at the retail level'."

This prompted a rebuke from the regulator, Comreg, which duly reminded us that the EU regulation requiring the opening up of that network was still in force, if far from becoming a reality.

For many observers, not least the many companies who want to offer proper broadband, the prospect of a company so openly contemptuous of the longstanding platitudes about opening up the network is, if anything, a regressive step.

Ireland is not about to become a powerhouse of low-cost textile manufacturing or fossil fuels. Conventional wisdom holds that our future lies in our ability to spark worldbeating new businesses in sectors such as digital media, with quirky little operators like Dublin-based Jam Media producing content that will keep kiddies happily parked in front of screens around the world.

Without more indigenous wealth creation driven by innovative Irish companies, we face continued dependence on the good will of multinationals and the forbearance of the US Congress. With 10% of all taxes collected by the government coming from foreign-owned manufacturing companies and 65% of Ireland's entire manufacturing output being delivered by the 5% of manufacturing companies that happen to be American subsidiaries . . . a situation that should make you a lot more uncomfortable than a few American GIs having pints in Shannon Airport . . .we remain happily globalised but exposed.

And one of the factors making it harder for those new businesses to get started is our broadband deficit. So expect commentators over the next few weeks to become increasingly vexed by the conundrum at hand . . . we need to dismantle the barriers to broadband but have no mechanism by which to force Eircom's likely new owners to do so.

Instead of getting worked up over B&B's takeover and its failure to genuflect to the jargon about local loops and last miles, we might consider that Topfer is probably correct.

Competition at the core network level really is unlikely here, no matter what the EU says. And forget building a parallel network. If we can't build a motorway without spending so long in court that by the time it's finished it's redundant, can we really dig up every street in Ireland to put fibre-optic cable up to every house?

That B&B isn't promising to do something it has no intention of delivering isn't the worst thing that could happen. It's mere reality. It's perhaps what's been missing in our whole debate on the subject.