[SBP] ComReg to launch price guide for telecom services

damien

By Kathleen Barrington

The telecoms regulator, ComReg, plans to launch a price comparison service that will allow consumers to evaluate the true cost of telecoms, according to its chairman, John Doherty.

Doherty said ComReg would offer an interactive price comparison on its website similar to one that has been launched in Denmark. A spokesman for ComReg said work had begun on the new service, but did not specify a launch date.

He said the service would be similar to the one outlined by the director general of Denmark's IT and Telecom Agency at a ComReg conference last week. Jorgen Abild Andersen said his agency had been publishing quarterly price guides for consumers since 1998.

The guides highlight the top five cheapest offers for certain consumer profiles and draw attention to hot pricing topics such as how to control mobile phone charges while roaming abroad. The Danish agency also offers consumers a web-based interactive price guide.

For example, consumers can ask the website to find the cheapest provider of ixed services for a user who needs five minutes of fixed calls a day.

Earlier this year, ComReg launched a code on transparency which stopped short of requiring companies to publish tariffs in a standard format.

Consumer groups have complained that complex pricing structures at telecoms firms make meaningful price comparisons difficult. Mobile phone charges in particular have come under scrutiny, given the large profits generated by the main mobile players, Vodafone and O2.

Some Irish telecoms have argued that quality is as important as price when it comes to choosing a service provider.

Andersen said the Danish agency provided "quality only'' comparisons to consumers as well as price comparisons.

eircomtribunal

It's such a sorry state of affairs:
Comreg will burn more of our money and ape Denmark's superb consumer information service, which the Danish regulator felt necessary to complement the successful regulation for real competition in the Danish Telecoms market.
The Danish regulator was aware that even with enabling real competition (through opening the incumbent's network by introducing the lowest Local Loop Unbundling prices of Europe, reducing and capping line rental, USO-ing ISDN service quality to all etc) the legendary inertia among Telco consumers had to be overcome by additional measures.

Our guys in Comreg are completely out or their depth, to put it mildly.
They are just in the process of regulating for one of the highest LLU prices in Europe.
They have made a mess of Whole-sale line rental (Eircom resale price minus 10% degrades the other operators to margin squeezed bill enforcers for Eircom) and failed to introduce flat-rate Internet access (we got overpriced pre-paid Internet hours that flopped with only 90 000 subscribers).
They have still not put a universal Service obligation in place that offers functional Internet access to the Irish consumer.


P.

eircomtribunal

While Patrick Massey mentions Telecoms only fleetingly, and while he chooses his words diplomatically, his message is clear: Our regulators are a failure and should get re-organised.

P.


From the Sunday Times, October 17, 2004

"Regulators 'need to be regulated'
Douglas Dalby

REGULATORS of semi-state utilities have failed to prevent them ripping off consumers and the watchdogs should themselves be overseen more strictly said Patrick Massey, the former head of the Competition Authority, who was speaking at this weekend’s Dublin Economic Workshop Policy conference in Kenmare, Co Kerry.

Massey, a director of Compecon, an economics consultancy, said little attempt had been made at restructuring the gas and electricity industries to promote the competition necessary to keep prices in check.

Regulators had failed to stop electricity costs spiralling 40%, gas charges by 22% and postal prices by 44% since December 2001.

“Sharp price increases for gas, electricity and postal services in recent years has contributed to a growing disenchantment with the regulatory process in Ireland and created a mistaken impression that competition has not worked in these industries,” he said.

Massey said pay levels in the electricity industry have risen sharply relative to those in other industries. Average weekly industrial earnings in the electricity, gas, steam and hot water supply sector in June 2004 were €1,157.47, more than twice average weekly industrial earnings, which stood at €560.60.

The economist said a first step towards reform would be to combine the existing regulatory agencies for energy, telecommunications and airports into a single entity."

jwt

While my initial thoughts about the price comparison are quite cynical, I'll wait and see rather than dismiss it out of hand.

I'll be very curious about the level of promotion this receives once up and running. More likely it'll be done and forever more will be referred to when someone asks what are they doing about transparency. The fact that no one knows about the site is neither here nor there.

The opening chapter of hitchhikers guide to the galaxy comes to mind

`...You hadn't exactly gone out of your way to call attention to them had you? I mean like actually telling anyone or anything.'
`But the plans were on display...'
`On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them.'
`That's the display department.'
`With a torch.'
`Ah, well the lights had probably gone.'
`So had the stairs.'
`But look you found the notice didn't you?'
`Yes,' said Arthur, `yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying "Beware of The Leopard"

-- Arthur singing the praises of the local council planning department.


John

eircomtribunal

jwt wrote:

I'll wait and see rather than dismiss it out of hand.

I'll be very curious about the level of promotion this receives once up and running.

Whatever level of promotion it will receive, it is a futile exercise.
Comreg has to get the basics right first.
As long as Comreg allows the incumbent
• to margin squeeze the competition on the so-called whole-sale line rental,
• to margin squeeze the competition on the line-rental/call prize composition,
• to condemn any attempts for competition on calls and dsl through LLU by setting a moon price,
all undertakings by Comreg to inform consumers about the minimal choices they can make is propagandistic nonsense.


P.