This legal action ultimately failed and on 29 June 2000 Meteor were finally issued with the third mobile telecommunications licence.

However, they became profitable in their first year of operation and picked up much of the lucrative pre-paid market among teenagers, due to low SMS rates and promotions such as free Meteor-to-Meteor text messages.

In 2004, Western Wireless International bought out the remaining minority shareholders in the consortium, and it became a wholly owned subsidiary of that company.

[3] In early 2005 several Irish newspapers reported that Western Wireless had been approached with a view to selling Meteor.

On 9 July 2005 it was reported by The Irish Times that there had been three bidders for Meteor: eircom, Smart Telecom, and a consortium led by Denis O'Brien.

However, on 14 July 2005, RTÉ News reported on their business website[4] that Denis O'Brien had withdrawn from bidding, and that it was understood that eircom was the top bidder at €410m.

On 18 November 2005 the Competition Authority approved, subject to conditions (primarily, that separate accounts continue to be published for Meteor).

[5] The company worked closely with Eircom in upgrading its billing systems and deploying EDGE and 3G technology on its network.

With the developments in eircom's acceptance of the fourth 3G licence from ComReg, Meteor was obliged to have 33% of the population covered with commercial roll out of 3G services in October 2007.

[citation needed] On 29 March 2012, a number of companies within the eir group, including Meteor, petitioned the Irish High Court for the appointment of an examiner.

4G was originally only available in Dublin, Carlow, Cork, Clare, Limerick, Galway, Mullingar, Athlone and Dundalk.

They had offered nationwide 3G services from 2007, but the Meteor 3G network was available to 33% of the Irish population (this included the four cities of Dublin, Cork, Limerick, Galway and other regional centres) with very limited geographic coverage, around 15% by 2013.

The legal transfer of licence for UMTS services from Meteor's parent, eircom, was officially authorised on 26 June 2008 taking effect the following day.

The DPC issued an order to eircom to halt this system in 2011, citing a ruling by the European Court of Justice.