Government movement on Phone Lines

flogen

So Dermot Ahern has bowed to public pressure on line rental charges:
http://www.rte.ie/news/2004/0128/eircom.html

and aims to have competition in the area by March, however what does this mean?
Will Eircom be forced to sell existing lines, or will other companies just have permission to lay their own new lines, but still have to rent from Eircom where they dont have any already laid?

If its the latter we may well be waiting a decade before any rival has enough layed lines to truely compete, it would also cause alot of un-needed chaos as Esat etc are forced to put their own lines where there are plenty down already.

Flogen

Guy:Incognito

sounds greta, more years of crap wit companies digging up every bloody road in the country,

Mossy Monk

what are the chances now of splitters being moved if i went with another company for phone line billing?

nothing i bet

silver surfer

wonder what's going to happen to all the lard-a**es doin nuthin in Eircom once this happens - up til now it's been money for old rope to prop up the civil service type attitude which prevails in there.

The staff own 25% of the shares now, i.e. if proper competition is brought in they will have to let go more incompetents !!

flogen

from what i now understand, the way its going to work is that eircom will be forced to sell a wholesale product, rather than the actual lines.... so the cost isnt likely to decrease very much, as eircom will be charging up to €20 to esat etc, who will then have to make a profit, and so maybe save you €1 a month or something....

Saying that, Id prefer to pay esat €25 a month rather than eircom, if enough people do that theyll be forced to drop their wholesale and public sale charges down to at least european averages, or go boom (a man can dream)

Flogen

fatherdougalmag

Well The Register quotes Uncle Dermot as saying:

Minister Ahern said that he will insist that the difference between the wholesale line rental price and the retail line rental price be wide enough to encourage competition in the market

Capt'n Midnight

Originally posted by flogen
Saying that, Id prefer to pay esat €25 a month rather than eircom,

The difference will be 8% with a €26 changeover fee. So even if they have €0 overhead (it costs money to do up your bill) it would take the other provider about 16months to break even and I'd bet Eircom will try customer tennis if there is a line problem - "no sir we don't look after your line anymore"

So it would be about €25 a year going to ESAT and the other 92% going to eircom - who will fob you off to ESAT.

BTW the 8% will be phased out over a few years !!!!!

In the UK DSL wholesale margins are not 8% they can be up to 60% - so there is scope for undercutting.

Bottom line - if you DON'T sign up then it will prove there is no competition and the wholesale rate will have to be dropped. If you sign up you are accepting the price (now indexed linked !) of which eircom's cut is nearly twice the EU average.

Ryaner

Originally posted by Capt'n Midnight
eircom's cut is nearly twice the EU average.

Might be because eircoms prices are still among the highest in most respects in europe