The rejected suitors included one Irish and one foreign potential buyer.

Last September the company reportedly set an asking price of 60m for the business unit.

In its annual results presentation last week, the company reported that losses at Irish Broadband had grown to more than 10.5m.

Barry reiterated that NTR was happy to part with the business unit, but not at any price. He said the company was expected to break even on an operating cash flow basis next year.

Irish Broadband has the exclusive rights to the spectrum used by WiMax technology, which is seen by some observers as a superior wireless broadband alternative in some respects to 3G.

But while neither technology has earned the affection of consumers as quickly as operators would like, WiMax is still considered to be less mainstream.

Barry said that while the shortlived entry of Smart into the Irish broadband market had forced prices down as Eircom followed suit, "nobody is making money on broadband in Ireland at the moment".