Danon later told a ComReg-hosted forum, that all operators would need to sit down and "remember the consumer matters first".

Danon also said at the forum that Eircom "need to do a good job if we don't want to see our lunch eaten."

UPC are nine months into a Euro300m investment programme and have also installed a new management team, which is promising to deliver 'triple play' digital tv, telephony and broadband. It will also release a digital video recorder to compete with Sky+.

Eircom claim that with the advent of video on demand services across the internet, Irish households will need around 10Mbps speed of broadband. The equipment being installed by UPC can theoretically deliver up to 40Mbps to a subscriber.