Born November 8th, 1951
Died August 5th, 2025
Businessman Tony Boyle, who has died aged 73, was one of a generation of entrepreneurs who led the liberalisation of the Republic’s telecoms industry, which helped lay the foundations for the modern Irish economy.
While many would associate him with the Persona consortium, which challenged the granting of the State’s second mobile licence to Denis O’Brien’s Esat Telecom in 1996, Boyle’s career was a good deal more varied, stretching from the 1960s up to his death this month.
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Over that time he worked for two multinationals before establishing Sigma Wireless, ultimately turning it into an international business that supplies products and services in 20 countries. Minnesota-based Day Wireless Systems bought the company in April this year.
He backed other ventures, including mobile licence bidder Persona, and local radio. His more recent involvements include Dense Air, which is developing 5G mobile networks in Portugal. In 2023 he invested in Irish telecoms equipment manufacturer Keltech.
Outside of work, he involved himself in different organisations including Ballymun Regeneration and Dublin Chamber, where he was a board member. A move to Portugal with his wife, Aoife Healy, prompted Boyle to help revive the Ireland Portugal Business Network (IPBN) in 2016. Both he and Healy chaired the organisation subsequently.
Boyle was active in business throughout his life, remaining on as Sigma chairman after stepping down as chief executive. One of his last public statements in that role was to hail Wireless Systems’ takeover of Sigma a “momentous day” for the company he helped create.
Not everything worked out. High rents forced the closure of his 3G mobile phone and equipment store chain in 2010 during a recession that pushed many retailers out of business.
Paying tribute after his death this month, Sigma Wireless said: “Tony Boyle conducted his business with absolute integrity, passion, compassion, drive and loyalty”.
Tony (James Anthony) Boyle was born in 1951 and grew up in Dublin’s inner city. He attended O’Connell’s School on North Richmond Street. After completing his Leaving Certificate, he joined a local branch of Dutch electronics giant Philips in the late 1960s at the age of 17, where he worked in sales.
He joined Motorola in 1978, working for it at a time when the US giant was pioneering what became modern mobile communications. Boyle subsequently oversaw operations for the group in Britain and Europe, at one stage taking responsibility for an engineering arm that employed 1,400 people.
In 1991 he and his long-time associate, Michael McGinley (father of golfer Paul) bought out part of Motorola’s Irish division to form Sigma Wireless. That company builds wireless radio networks for clients, including secure systems for emergency services.
Early customers included An Garda Síochána, the ambulance service, the Irish Coastguard and air travel overseer, the Irish Aviation Authority. Sigma also earned international contracts from the United Nations to build communications networks for peacekeeping missions. Later, it provided a secure communications network for the Luas tramline when it launched early in the century.
With this background, bidding for a second mobile phone network licence offered by the State in the mid-1990s – a key development in the opening of its telecoms market – was seen as a logical progression. Boyle and McGinley established the Persona consortium with the ESB and Motorola.
The State awarded the licence to Esat, controlled by businessman Denis O’Brien and Norway’s Telenor in 1996. They sold to BT four years later for £1.5 billion (€1.9 billion). Several ownership changes later, the business is now called 3 Ireland and is controlled by Hong Kong’s Hutchison.
Subsequent questions about O’Brien’s relationship with the then minister for communications, Michael Lowry, now a Government-supporting Independent TD, prompted the Government to establish the Moriarty tribunal. Losing bidders for the licence launched their own court challenges to the decision.
In 2011 the Moriarty tribunal found that that Lowry “secured the winning” of the licence for Esat. Both parties have denied this. When another unsuccessful bidder, Comcast, dropped its High Court suit in May this year, Lowry dubbed it a vindication, saying he had delivered proof of no impropriety on his part.
By 2004 Boyle and McGinley had taken control of Persona, whose case is still live. Those who knew him say Boyle was more motivated by a commitment to fairness and transparency than anything else. They also maintain that he did not allow the case to take up too much of his energy.
In 1998 Sigma sold Person2Person a chain of mobile phone shops it owned, to Eircell, part of the old State-owned Telecom Éireann business, which Vodafone later bought, for a reported €25 million.
Even as the controversy over the licence rumbled on, the arrival of more powerful third-generation (3G) mobile technology was opening new opportunities for Sigma Wireless to build the infrastructure needed to transmit the signals to people’s phones.
Ironically, Sigma won a contract to supply antennae for the 3G network which O2 (as BT had renamed Esat) was building in 2003. The deal was said to be worth €5 million. That followed a €20 million agreement with O2 in the UK, along with contracts for France Telecom, and bids in Spain and the US.
Sigma ploughed millions into research and development to ensure it stayed ahead of rivals. In interviews, Boyle often advocated for increased State spending in this area. The company did all this from the old Philips premises in Finglas, Dublin.
This led to Boyle joining the old North Dublin Chamber of Commerce, where he was elected president. That gave him a seat on the council of the Dublin Chamber of Commerce in 1998. It was a second stint on that body, he had previously been involved there in the 1980s. He chaired its international network committee in 1999 and then its ecommerce committee. He later worked on a review of its board and executive.
He is survived by his wife, Aoife; son, Sé; daughters, Aisling, Jeanne and Anne-Marie; their mother, Ger; grandchildren, Elsebeth, Michael, Emma, Matthew and James; and siblings Kathleen, Denise, Bernard and Sean.
