wished to develop broadband services in 1997/1998 but there was an embargo on developing and selling Internet services by the main shareholders, Telecom Éireann, but the management felt if it were developed and a trial launched then there would be no stopping this. To conceal this from the Board, they hired a small Dublin company The Communications Interactive Agency to manage and run the trial. To this end all purchases of equipment and Internet Services were done in their name. At the time they were one of the first to demonstrate VoIP in Ireland as a commercial service which was done by the then managing director Alex Gogan at the Press Launch, by dialling live the Speaking Clock in New York using Net2phone.com service. At the time they were one of the first companies in Europe to trial and launch Broadband services. What stopped the trial from becoming a full roll out across their network was the purchase by NTL. It took the company almost four more years to integrate NTL Broadband service. Sale to NTL In 1999, as part of the privatisation of Eircom, the Government put pressure on the shareholders of Cablelink to sell the company. Part of the reason was that Eircom was regarded by some as a "spoiler shareholder" in Cablelink, refusing to allow the company to compete in the voice telephony market that it dominated. The company was put up for auction, with bidders including Esat Telecom Group, NTL, and UPC, as well as CMI Cable and Irish Multichannel. It was eventually announced that NTL would acquire the company for IR£535.18m (nearly €680 million). Under NTL, the company was renamed NTL Ireland on 3 July 2000, and began offering telephony and internet services. The company began to upgrade its network and in 2001 launched its digital television service. However the company lost two managing directors during the time NTL ran the franchise. The biggest crisis erupted in early 2001, when NTL stopped selling its direct telephony and high-speed internet services, and halted the roll out of its upgraded hybrid fibre coax network. This led to a very public row with the Commission for Communications Regulation, and the resignation of Ian Jeffers, the NTL executive who had been assigned to the Dublin operation upon the NTL takeover. Some years later, the company was forced to suspend its telephone service after problems with the equipment emerged. Sale