Under a deal agreed between communications regulator Comreg and Eircom, Smart's telephone customers had until Thursday 2 November to find another provider. The deadline was extended until yesterday, however, due to the large number of customers still to sign up with an alternative operator.

As the Thursday deadline fell, some 7,000 former Smart customers had still not made alternative arrangements according to Comreg.

The regulator spent much of the previous week contacting the customers directly by phone and through a direct mail campaign to alert them to the impending deadline.

Smart's 40,000 telephone customers were abruptly cut off at the beginning of October when Eircom ceased supplying services to Smart over a 4m debt owed to it by the troubled company.

They were subsequently reconnected following negotiations with Comreg, provided with a limited telephone service . . . not including international calls . . . and given until 2 November to sign up with another operator.

Eircom appears to have been the biggest beneficiary of the dispute between the companies, which effectively brought down the curtain on Smart's residential telephone business. According to an Eircom spokesman, the former state monopoly has so far signed up over 60% of the former Smart customers.