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Profile
Chorus
Communication is Ireland's second largest Cable company
and largest MMDS company. It provides cable and MMDS
television services to 250,000 people, however its
penetration is a lot lower than NTL since its franchise
area covers 600,000 households - a larger area than NTL.
It was the first Irish cable company to offer telephone
services, and (CMI was) the first Irish company to offer
high-speed internet services. In 2000 it also also the
first company to offer Republic of Ireland customers RTE,
TV3, BBC, ITV, and Channel 4 in digital, launching the
first digital cable service in the Republic. Read on to
find out more about the company's history...
History
Independent
Newspapers bids for some MMDS Franchises
In 1989 the Irish government were auctioning the new
Multipoint Microwave Distribution System franchises. Independent News and Media eventually acquired a host of
franchises mainly in the Munster and Connacht areas.
Later, they decided to buy into cable. Armed with a 50%
investment by US company Telecommunications Inc (TCI
Ireland) in a new group Princes Holdings Limited, the
company acquired Limerick’s cable firm Westward
Cable, and Cork’s cable firm Cork Communications, as
well as another MMDS company Horizon Multichannel. The
brand name Irish Multichannel was adopted for all the
combined services.
 
Recent
History – On the Acquisition Trail
1999 has seen IMC on the advance once more.
During the early part of the year, they spent much of
their time trying to take over Cablelink, although in the
end they lost out to NTL. In early autumn, they were more
successful however, signing a deal whereby they would
essentially take over CMI Cable (its a bit more
complicated than this...read the full story). Later they announced a take-over
of Suir Nore Relays Ltd. This eliminates all the major
cable companies in Ireland except NTL. During the year
former Consumer Affairs Director, William Fagan, joined
IMC as Director of Regulatory Affairs. The company also
announced the start of an interconnect phone service,
applied successfully for a wireless local loop license,
and announced that role-out of the Digital network will
take place in 1999-2000. All in all, a very busy year for
IMC. Late 1999 saw a change in the shareholding of IMC.
TCI was taken over by American Telephone and Telegraph
Corp (AT&T) and the non-US operations became Liberty
Media International, Inc.
A New
Name
In February 2000 Irish Multichannel was very busy again
launching Unison, the Republic's first TV-Internet service.
On 2nd October 2000, Irish Multichannel, Suir Nore
Relays, and CMI Cable were no more – Princes
Holdings has a new trading name, Chorus
Communication.
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