and RTÉ. However, NTL won. In 1999, Esat Telecom was the first wholly owned Irish company to lay two optical submarine cables between Ireland and the UK. No other company had achieved such a milestone and since then, only operators from outside the state have managed to install their own optical submarine cables. Esat BT In 1999, relations became tense between Esat and Telenor over how Esat Digifone, their mobile joint venture, should be operated. Telenor tried to remove Denis O'Brien as chairman of Esat Digifone and remove the Esat name from the company. Esat for its part retaliated by threatening to sue Telenor, and making repeated offers to buy the Norwegian company out. Eventually, in November 1999, Telenor bid for the entire share capital of Esat Telecom Group plc as a way of solving the situation. The bid was rejected by the Esat board and so became a hostile takeover attempt. To defend this, in January 2000, British Telecommunications plc (now BT Group plc) made a friendly takeover offer for the company which was backed by the Esat board. Esat became a wholly owned subsidiary of BT and was delisted from the stock market. When BT acquired Esat, they began integrating the business along with its Northern Ireland subsidiary, BT (NI). The combined unit was then registered as BT Communications (Ireland) Limited. The company's main business is in fixed line telecommunications where it owns its own network in Northern Ireland and owns a network built along the Iarnród Éireann rail network in the Republic of Ireland and along the road which complements its rail network. The network build phase started in August 1997 and it also leases capacity from its fixed line incumbent, Eircom. Following the company's acquisition by BT, Esat Telecom was rebranded as Esat BT in 2002, and replaced its own logo with the BT piper. BT Ireland In late 2004, it was announced from April 2005, the name of the company would change from "Esat BT" to just "BT Ireland". The company has performed well, winning some high-profile corporate clients. However, Eircom still commands over a 73% share of fixed-line telecommunications in the Republic of Ireland. All company names in the Esat BT Group were officially re-registered with the Companies Registration Office as BT in March 2005, and on 12 April, the company was officially rebranded as "BT Ireland". On 22 July 2009, BT Ireland agreed