3
10. Furthermore, a majority of the respondents to the Commission’s enquiry have expressed
no concerns as regards this issue. Two respondents maintain that, due to Eircell joining
Vodafone’s network, the transaction would result in the strengthening of Eircell’s
dominant position or, at least, in Eircell’s becoming dominant in the Irish mobile market.
Eircell would become a member of Vodafone’s recently launched European retail roaming
offer, Eurocall. Customers of the 12 operators participating in the Eurocall will pay a flat
rate when roaming on a network of one of the participating operators. As a result,
according to one of these complainants, new mobile customers and some of the customers
of direct competitors to Eircell in Ireland would migrate to Eircell. Moreover, Eircell
would be able to offer IOT discounts similar to those offered by other operators belonging
to Eurocall. This will, according to these two respondents, make Eircell more attractive as
a roaming partner for foreign operators wanting to roam in Ireland. The two respondents
also claim that the current duration of 3 years (until April 2003) of the commitment given
by Vodafone, under the Vodafone AirTouch/ Mannesmann decision, is insufficient to
permit competing mobile operators to develop and achieve alternative networks during this
period. Therefore, it is argued that the relevant commitment should be extended for
another 3 years (i.e. until 2006).
11. This argument, however, is not convincing. First, already today the current undertaking
grants other operators the possibility to offer seamless pan-European mobile services in
competition with Vodafone up to 12 April 2003 (i.e. the end of the commitment). They can
thus benefit from the IOT discounts offered by the operators participating in the Vodafone
network. The 2003 deadline also allows interested operators to set up arrangements with
other operators and provide advanced services. In addition, as regards the recently
announced Eurocall by Vodafone, this offer is available to operators outside the Vodafone
group of companies. The fact that Eircell is added to the existing Vodafone group of
companies, therefore, appears not to have a significant impact on the provision of seamless
pan-European services. For these reasons, and taking into account the limited impact of
Eircell’s addition to Vodafone’s network, there are no compelling reasons for Vodafone to
extend the duration of the undertaking.
Mobile telephony services
12. The Commission has in previous decisions
2
found evidence that there exists a market for
the provision of mobile telephony services (irrespective of whether analogue or digital
(GSM 900/1800). The relevant geographic market for the provision of such services has
been considered national in scope. Based on national markets, the current transaction leads
to no horizontal overlaps between the activities of Vodafone and Eircell. Eircell operates
only in Ireland with a market share (in terms of subscribers) of approximately 60%, the
remaining 40% being in the hands of Esat Digifone, which is currently jointly controlled
by British Telecom (BT) and Telenor. A third mobile telephony licence has also been
awarded to Meteor, which will start its operations in the first quarter of 2001.
13. Vodafone has, as stated above, operations in a number of EEA countries but is not active
in Ireland. In the UK, Vodafone is the largest operator with an estimated market share of
30.6%, followed by BT Cellnet with 25.4%, Orange with 23.9% and One2One with
20.1%.
2
See e.g. Commission decisions in Case No IV/M.1430 Vodafone/Airtouch (decision of 21.05.1999) and
Case No COMP/M.1838 BT/Esat (decision of 27.03.2000
)