ALTO director Liam O'Halloran said that he expected the Commission would be "very interested" in any sale, since they originally gave Government permission to construct the networks to compete with Eircom.

Prior to construction of the networks, the Commission examined the proposal to assess if it constituted state aid that would impact on competition. In its decision, the Commission ruled that the project constituted state aid under EU law, but allowed the project to go ahead since it was designed to ensure the availability of an open network which would be neutral of any telecoms provider. It held that the EC Treaty allowed state aid which facilitated economic development in certain areas without adversely affecting trading conditions.

The Commission noted at the time that in the towns targeted by the MANs programme, Eircom was the only operator present with an infrastructure that could compete with the future MANs, which caused an absence of infrastructural competition.

A spokesperson for EU competition commissioner Neelie Kroes told the Sunday Tribune that the Commission would not comment on hypothetical deals.

O'Halloran said that an Eircom takeover of the MANs would be bad for competition in the sector. He said that it was surprising that Eircom was now so interested in them, considering that when the networks were built, Eircom criticised them as being an unnecessary duplication of its own network.

Although Eircom is believed to be contemplating selling its retail arm to concentrate solely on its network, O'Halloran said that such a split would not eliminate ALTO's competition concerns. "Competition occurs on many levels. Aside from retail, we also need competition at an infrastructural level and we believe it would be bad for the industry if we moved back towards a monopolistic infrastructural situation, " he said.

Another of Eircom's competitors, Digiweb, also expressed concern. "There is an overwhelming need to support an alternative network strategy, " said chief executive Colm Piercy. "It seems everyone has had about enough of the ongoing Eircom saga, being sliced, diced, polished and resold over and over. It's time for change."