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The news comes just on the heels of a cache-poisoning attack that left Eircom users without web services over the weekend of Sunday, 5 July and on the evening of Monday, 13 July.

‘Cache poisoning’ is a form of attack where the open-architecture of a domain name server (DNS) is altered to direct authentic web traffic to non-authentic web sites. Eircom users initially found that when they went to popular sites such as Facebook, Bebo and RTE, they were redirected to sites with pictures of scantily clad women.

In a statement this morning Eircom confirmed that users experienced an outage between 5.30pm and approximately midnight,when full service was restored.

“Yesterday afternoon’s disruption was caused by the combination of a processor failure and a fault on one of our international links,” the company said.

“Our technical teams have worked with our suppliers through the night to address the issue to avoid recurrence of the problem. We will continue to make further changes throughout the day.

“We expect that further significant service interruptions will be avoided, although there may be some minor service interruptions as necessary configuration changes take place.

“We appreciate our customers continued patience as we work to resolve these issues. eircom sincerely apologises for this interruption and we would like to reassure all affected customers that the company is making every effort to ensure a full service is maintained.”

Eircom said that users who continue to have difficulties accessing the internet should shut down and reboot their computer and broadband modem, via the power switch located at the rear of the modem.

“These steps should reset all applicable software and restore the network connection,” the company said.

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In a statement this morning Eircom said it was following a High Court order.

“In making the Order, requiring Eircom to block access to The Pirate Bay website, the High Court was satisfied that the website is dedicated to facilitating the illegal downloading of copyrighted material without the permission of the copyright owners.

“Eircom recognises the legitimate rights of the owners of copyrighted material and believes that individuals who share or download copyrighted material without the authorisation or the permission of the owner of that content are acting illegally.

“Eircom would like to reassure customers that as part of the block Eircom will not monitor customers’ activities at any stage, nor will it place any monitoring equipment or software on its network in order to facilitate this block,” the company said.

Meanwhile cable broadband operator UPC said it was going to stand by its guns on the issue and will not block The Pirate Bay.

Last week UPC confirmed that the big four record labels – EMI, Warner, Sony and Universal – have sought a High Court injunction to block The Pirate Bay on its network.

“UPC regrets this decision by the rightsholders. We have throughout all correspondence indicated that we are very supportive of the position that authors and performers are entitled to be remunerated for their artistic efforts. As has been communicated in the past, we take a strong stance on the infringement of copyright – indeed our very own business model depends on the protection of such material.

“Notwithstanding this however, as a legitimate business we are required to operate within the confines of the law. We believe that there is no basis in Irish law for this request,” UPC said last week.

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In June, STT originally offered €120m for Eircom, in a move that was strongly supported by the Eircom Employee Share Ownership Trust (ESOP).

STT, which is understood to have interests across Asia and owns fibre optic cable player Global Crossing, has bid €130 to buy Eircom Holdings, formerly known as Babcock & Brown Capital.

The deal is expected to be concluded next week subject to a number of issues being addressed, namely the management fee that STT will p[ay to run Eircom.

Eircom, which has debts of €3bn, still has an integral role to play in ensuring Ireland has the telecoms infrastructure it needs for the future of the economy and it is understood STT has met with the Irish Government about addressing infrastructure deficit.

It has been suggested that Eircom may return to the stock market by 2011 to enable STT to get a return on its investment.

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LLU effectively means an operator gains access to a local exchange and by being able to put in their own equipment they can offer higher speeds and newer services such as TV via broadband. This is different to bitstream broadband where an operator simply resells an incumbent operators’ product and cannot change or innovate with the product.

In 2005 BT and Ofcom reached a landmark deal whereby BT agreed not to compete with its bittream product until the UK had 1.5 billion LLU subscribers. BT established a new division called Openreach to provide unbundling services to rivals.

Ofcom said today that the number of unbundled lines – where providers like Sky or Carphone Warehouse can offer services directly to customers via unbundled exchanges has reached the 6m mark.

When Ofcom and BT reached an agreement in September 2005 there were just 123,00 unbundled lines in the UK and the majority of people could only get their broadband and landline telephone service from one provider, BT.

Today more than 30 different companies are offering unbundled broadband services to homes and small businesses, driving broadband uptake and driving down fixed line prices.

Broadband penetration in the UK jumped from 37pc in 2005 to 65pc today.

In addition consumer broadband costs have fallen from stg£23.30 a month (ex VAT) in 2005 to stg£13.61 today.

“In just four years unbundling has gone from a flicker on the dial to a major competitive force in telecoms,” said Ofcom chief executive Ed Richards.

“This has delivered the dual benefits of driving up broadband take-up and driving down prices,” Richard.

However, after more than 10 years since deregulation of the Irish telecoms market began, LLU can be seen as a market failure in this country, with 96pc of copper DSL lines sold in Ireland originating with incumbent operator Eircom either directly or as ‘resold’ services.

Despite millions of euros invested in LLU by alternative operators Smart, Magnet and BT, only 16,500 people in this country subscribe to LLU products.

If a similar agreement to the BT/Ofcom deal were to be struck by ComReg and Eircom, the Irish market for LLU could potentially grow to 150,000 subscribers, observers say.

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TorrentFreak, a site specialising in covering digital piracy and copyright developments, claims that a private document, entitled Briefing Note on Arrangement Between Eircom and Irish Recorded Music Association (IRMA) with regard to Copyright Infringement March 2009, was leaked to them, providing further insight into the January agreement.

The document states that Eircom will categorically not monitor its customers’ activities or install equipemnt to do this either, nor will it give customer details to a third party, inlcuding IRMA.

However, IRMA will use anti-piracy tracking firm Dtecnet to monitor online copyright infringement and will supply Eircom with certain data on the an infringement notification.

Eircom will receive details on the IP address along with a time stamp and details of the peer-to-peer application used by the accused.

As long as IRMA gives independent certification to show that notifications have been lawfully obtained, Eircom is then required to carry out the three stirkes rule, informing the customer of the alleged infringement on the first time, and warning them that they will be disconnected on the second occasion.

Quoting from the leaked document TorrentFreak details the third strike ramifications:

“On a third occasion of being detected as infringing copyright, and having reviewed the position, the subscriber will be served by Eircom with a termination notice and, subject to extenuating circumstances arising, will be disconnected thereafter.”

Interestingly in this deal Eircom has a little more power indpeednet of IRMA than previously thought: customers have a right to complain if they feel that they are being “inappropriately or incorrectly identified as infringing copyright”.

Aslo Eircom reserves the right “to remove a customer from a particular level or not to effect a disconnection” oif it feels that IRMA’s complaints may not be accurate or that there are “particular extenuating circumstances which would make the disconnection of the customer unjustified”.

One thing the deal does not set out is the blocking of torrent linking site The Pirate Bay. This was rumoured to be part of the agreement between IRMA and Eircom, however, Eircom has agreed not to block a court applicaiton by IRMA forcing it to block the site.

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