08 November 2009 By Dick O’Brien
Telecoms firm Imagine plans to ignite a broadband price war with the release of aggressive pricing for its new WiMax broadband product early next week.The company intends to go after Eircom’s market share by pricing its entry level package at €25 per month with no line rental fee, which it says will undercut Eircom by over 50 per cent.Eircom’s cheapest broadband package is €25.09 a month, but does not include line rental, which is currently priced at €25.47 per month.Imagine is also planning to offer a phone-only package for €20 per month with no line rental fees. It will come with unlimited calls to fixed lines in all 32 counties and Britain.While the company will market itself against Eircom’s prices, it will also undercut other operators offering voice and broadband packages. At present, the cheapest package on the market according to telecoms regulator ComReg is from cable operator UPC for €30 per month.The company also plans to take on mobile operators who currently offer some of the cheapest broadband products on the market by offering a mobile broadband dongle for €5 a month. At present, mobile broadband products start in the region of €20 per month.Imagine launched the new service last month but made no announcement at the time about the pricing of the service.No details were available about the download speeds offered by the product, but Sean Bolger, the chief executive of Imagine, has previously indicated that the service would offer speeds of 7 megabits per second.Imagine has invested €100 million in its new WiMax broadband network, having secured the backing of Intel and Motorola for the project.The company has already begun installing its infrastructure in a number of areas around Dublin and plans to reach a quarter of a million homes in Dublin, Wexford and Sligo by the middle of December.WiMax is a wireless broadband technology, which does not have to rely on the traditional phone network and can be made available to homes through a network of masts.The company expects to create 200 jobs once the network is up and running.Bolger has said that the new network will not be restricted to high population areas, but will also be rolled out to smaller towns and rural communities at a rate of 15 new areas per month.Imagine is also backed by DFJ Esprit Capital, NTR and Kilsaran, the latter two became shareholders in the company after its €47 million takeover of wireless broadband operator Irish Broadband, which was the first company to launch WiMax services on to the Irish market.According to its most recent figures, Imagine recorded turnover of €50 million in the year ending December 31, 2007 and posted a net loss of €8.8 million.
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