NDER a Chinese curse, your enemies are invited to "live in interesting times". There is no doubt that Irish telecommunications over the last year - for the Minister, Mr Lowry, and for the protagonists - have been in "interesting times".

It was certainly a year which saw action. After five years of negotiations, four ministers add three governments, Telecom Eireann eventually made it to the altar with its chosen partner for the strategic alliance.

It was a cliff hanger as a lot of the princes had left the party and Telecom was in danger of ending up kissing frogs. But while KPN/ Telia may not have been the first division player originally hoped for, Telecom is, nevertheless, stronger in this new partnership.

The overseas partner will pay £183 million up front for 20 per cent of Telecom Eireann and a further £200 million for the remaining 15 per cent over the next three years.

The dwindling interest in Telecom was caused by the drawn out process, and because other opportunities had become available for international players during the protracted negotiations.

The scale of global alliances currently taking place can be judged by the recent announcement from British Telecom of its takeover of the US based MCI, creating a telecommunications company worth $35 billion (£21 billion).

The marketplace believes that in the next 10 years, a handful of giant telecommunications companies will emerge to dominate the market and, with this in mind, the 35 per cent sale of Telecom to KPN/Telia seems insignificant.

Perhaps selling a larger stake would have made Telecom more attractive to the larger players and allowed its absorption into a global style alliance rather than a European one.

This would have ensured growth and job development from the technological advancements made possible from such a deal.

One of the other major developments was the controversy over the issuing of the second mobile GSM licence to Esat Digifone.

While the Department was at pains to explain that it had made the right decision, the other bidders felt that the handling of the matter was, at best, undiplomatic.

Apparently the reverberations will rumble on with the European Commission still investigating the complaint about the openness of the procedure and its subsequent decision.

It was expected that the second GSM would be operational in time for the peak Christmas sales period when mobile phone sales rocket. But unfortunately, delays seem to have dogged the project and, despite the brave face put on by Esat Digifone, there must be some pain attached.

From a marketing perspective, there has been considerable name calling and sniping between Eircell and Digifone which is all good stuff and creates the impression that there is going to be hot competition.

However, anyone who thinks that a duopoly is real competition is mistaken, which is why the announcement of the third mobile licence, which is being insisted on by the European Commission, will probably be good news for the Irish consumer.

The third mobile phones licence next year has come about as a result of the application for derogation until 2000 by the Government. Derogation is a way of extending the Telecom monopoly to that year. There were 14 submissions objecting to this, from a variety of business groups, interested parties and private telecommunications providers in Ireland, ourselves included.

There was one supporting submission and that came from the trade union groups, including those involved in Telecom Eireann.

In fact, the Government did not get its own way entirely on derogation. Thanks to these 14 independent submissions, at least part of the Government request was rejected, allowing for some liberalisation to be introduced next year, which will mainly benefit medium to large business users.

They will be able to run their own networks. This news heralds an exciting prospect for people like ourselves, to capture more international telephone traffic and to offer more innovative services to Irish business.

The key to a lot of this liberalisation will be the long overdue independent regulator, on which Europe has been insisting. The office of the regulator will be useless unless it is truly independent and expert in its field.

There have been some misgivings about the proposed legislation for the regulator, from independent bodies such as the Irish Business and Employers Confederation.

This does not bode well unless changes can be made, as the existing regulatory situation is unfair.

The Department, which is effectively the major shareholder in the market's dominant player, Telecom Eireann, is acting as regulator. The need for an independent and transparent regulatory body is essential for the development of a competitive telecommunications market.

One of the first areas where we would like to see the regulator act is in the use of routers. These devices are fitted on customers sites and take an international call through to a competitive international carrier, thus by passing Telecom's monopoly in the process.

While we are in favour of this as competition, operators like ourselves in the market place who have obeyed the Department of Communications rules on routers, have suffered from the Department's inadequacy in clearly defining the boundaries of a value added service licence and its perceived inability to enforce the rules, having belatedly defined them.

International studies show that open competition is the single most important factor in increasing affordability. Falling prices will then attract more customers and further improvement in the price/performance ratio. This in turn creates jobs.

The concern from the Communications Workers Union and Telecom Eireann over job losses in Telecom as a result of deregulation is understandable but short sighted.

Rather, by focusing on a competitive telecommunications environment, Irish business (and the economy in turn) will benefit from reduced tariffs, leading to in creased demand, technical investment and diversity of services.

In countries where the monopoly has been removed, the entire marketplace has grown and the dominant player is more efficient and profitable than ever before.

One of the most obvious methods of offering competitive communications, especially in Dublin, would be the compulsory sale of the Telecom Eireann stake in Cablelink, the cable TV operator.

The European Commission is unhappy because the dominant telecommunications player is also active in cable TV, so there is some hope that this may come to pass. Given the lack of action to date in developing Cablelink and services, Telecom's stakeholding here can only be seen as defensive and is neither good for the cable TV industry nor helpful for competitive communications as, by keeping out other players, it is effectively stifling growth.

In mobile telephony, the opening of data access on mobile services will take p/e in the coming year. Mobile phones connected to laptop PCs will be able to access the Internet, local area networks and fax transmission.

Most people involved in the telecommunications industry will be heading into the coming era with a sense of optimism, which is borne out of the changes which the European Community is bringing to bear on our industry in Ireland.

There is also optimism about the Minister, Mr Dukes, who has considerable previous experience in government and in Europe and who is thought to be sympathetic towards a competitive telecommunications environment which would benefit the economy as a whole.