Potential bidders for Eircom have been asked to formulate proposals by the end of the month.

The slimmed-down company - which seeks to demerge its Eircell mobile phone business at an extraordinary general meeting today - will pick one bidder for further talks, possibly leading to an agreed bid for the company.

Alternatively, Eircom may decide that none of the existing approaches is sufficiently attractive and end talks with all three groups.

The voluntary deadline follows last Friday's fiasco when the Eircom board met at 7 a.m. to consider an approach from the eIsland consortium which never materialised. The reason for the confusion is still unclear.

EIsland and the other two potential bidders, the Valentia Consortium and Mr Dermot Desmond's IIU, are expected to work within the new structure.

The Valentia Consortium is chaired by Sir Anthony O'Reilly and is made up of three venture capital funds and the merchant bank Goldman Sachs.

EIsland is led by Mr Denis O'Brien, the former Esat Digifone chairman, but has yet to identify all of its financial backers. All three are hoping to get the backing of the Eircom board for their bid and should comply with the timetable proposed by Merrill Lynch and Goodbody Corporate Finance. The deadline will not affect the bidders' ability under the Irish Takeover Panel rules to launch a bid at any time without the support of the board.

The new timetable is intended to bring to a conclusion a process that began last year when Mr O'Brien first announced his intention to bid. An agreed offer for the company could emerge as soon as the middle of next month, assuming one of the three possible bidders does not move first of its own accord.

Eircom shareholders will meet in Dublin this morning to set in train the sale of Eircell to Vodafone for #3.3 billion (£2.6 billion).