Regulation
Ireland's national regulatory authority for communications, ComReg, adopted a decision in February 2005 that O2 and Vodafone were jointly dominant in the wholesale services market provided over mobile public telephone networks. As a result, Comreg required both to open their networks to mobile virtual network operators and other third parties.
Three of Ireland's four mobile network operators began appeal proceedings against the decision in March 2005. O2 appealed on the grounds that the decision-making process and the legal and economic analyses were flawed. The appeal succeeded and the decision was annulled by the Electronic Communications Appeal Panel ('ECAP') in December 2005. This result removed all associated regulatory obligations including those relating to network access.
