Eircom has been awarded a €100 million contract to provide telecommunications services to the Northern Ireland Civil Service (NICS) for 10 years. The contract was previously held by BT, the North's incumbent telecoms operator, which said it was "disappointed not to secure the contract on this occasion".

Pierre Danon, Eircom's chairman, said the company plans to use this contract as a springboard into the corporate market in the North.

"This is just the start of Eircom establishing itself in the [large corporate] business market in Northern Ireland," he said.

Eircom said it will employ 40 staff at a network operations centre in Belfast to handle this contract. Mr Danon said the company was also in the process of recruiting a chief executive for its Northern Ireland business who would be based in Belfast.

Eircom will provide voice, data and other IT services to about 15,000 civil servants in 11 Government departments in the North over a secure, managed network. It teamed up with Fujitsu and Cable & Wireless to win the contract.

The NICS has an option to break the contract after six years. If that were to happen the contract would be worth €70 million to Eircom, Mr Danon said.

Separately, Eircom confirmed yesterday that it had completed the sale of its 340 masts for €155 million to a consortium led by Threefold Project Management, a Dublin-based company that designs and builds communications networks.

The consortium, called TowerCom Holdings, comprises Threefold, Goodbody Stockbrokers and Plainfield Asset Management, a fund manager based in Connecticut.

The masts business generates revenues of about €10 million annually.