During the TV3 launch, the organisers screened a montage of the station's advertisers talking up the Showpal app.

Prominent among them was Herb Hribar, the Eircom boss. TV3's David McRedmond, a former commercial director at Eircom, who worked alongside the American a decade ago. They must still be pals.

It has been a good week for Hribar, following the launch of eVision, Eircom's television service. It is the first to market in Ireland with "quad-play", which sounds like a motorcycling event but is really just shorthand for combined TV, home phone, mobile and broadband services.

When Hribar took the reins at Eircom following its examinership 18 months ago, it was in a competitive heap. Eircom was being slapped around by UPC, which had performed the corporate equivalent of giving it a wedgie over several years.

A former networks director at Eircom, Hribar was appointed to help complete the over- haul of its creaking network. The job isn’t done yet, but all the big decisions have been made. Now Hribar will have to show he can sell as well as build.

Intriguingly, UPC rushed out a release on Wednesday about its own TV offering, clearly designed to steal some of eVision’s thunder. Cut- throat competition is coming in the fixed line market.

Fight! Fight! Fight!