IrelandOffline to meet Noel Dempsey Tues 6th

damien

3 of us from IrelandOffline will be meeting Noel Dempsey next Tuesday in Leinster House. We have only a very brief time with him so we'll try and get in as much issues we are concerned about as possible.

Sarsfield

Just be sure he remembers at least one thing rather than just hearing 50. Ministers are presented with thousands of facts every day. And God bless them, they're only human like the rest of us.

Br@nkin

Bring up the lack of Broadband in Delgany, and surrounding areas, even though they are just outside the Greystones exchange. >=[

damien

Postponed til the 13th now. Luckily Ryanair flights are cheap.

joeirish

damien.m wrote:

3 of us from IrelandOffline will be meeting Noel Dempsey next Tuesday in Leinster House. We have only a very brief time with him so we'll try and get in as much issues we are concerned about as possible.

You might ask him why neither he or his officials have responded to 7 (yes seven!) emails concerning the Lough Graney Community Broadband GBS grant. We've been trying to get some answers since September :mad: and may wind up the project due to lack of reponse.
Thanks

Joe Griffin

oscarBravo

Where's Lough Graney? - can you talk to your regional broadband co-ordinator instead?

joeirish

oscarBravo wrote:

Where's Lough Graney? - can you talk to your regional broadband co-ordinator instead?

It's in Co Clare near Scarriff. The questions I have raised apparently require senior people to respond according to my original phone call to the department in September. So the regional coordinator would just pass them on also.

Joe

damien

Here was the agenda we went in with to the Minister. We were given 30mins to talk but he extended it to 75mins which is quite a lot of time when you realise who he won't even give 10mins too.


** State of Nation **
We pointed out the state of the telecoms nation to the Minister. Highest line rental in EU by 8 euros per month. 4th most expensive for landline calls when using genuine composite basket, Mobile ARPU highest in the EU Broadband 2nd last, only greece is worse. Falling down OECD table. CCI survey shows 30% of businesses fail to upgrade to broadband though they want to.


** LLU **
Suggestion of a directive to ComReg to have Ireland reach LLU targets. These targets are % of existing dsl lines. Directive to bring us on a par with the rest of the EU. Results publicly posted at least every quarter and compared to EU average.

LLU Adjudicator as is the case in the UK is needed here. Adjudicator is definitely required for when LLU becomes "mainstream", now is the time for the Dept to be looking for this person.

ComReg dropped their Feb directives after a court case which was an aside appeal from eircom appealing to ECAP. ComReg lost the right to force a directive while eircom appealed. They did NOT lose the ECAP case but instead withdrew from it and agreed with eircom that eircom would publish the Market Requirements Document which we all saw was a load of bull.

We stated that we think ComReg should have fought it out in the ECAP. We still think they should reissue the directives that got to the ECAP and leave a judicial panel rule on it.


** FRIACO **

Direct ComReg to re-examine FRIACO. Work on bringing in true flatrate. Lower
cost of wholesale product. Even eircom are surprised there is no price
reduction - mentioned in their SEC filing twice.

eircom still sell billions of dialup minutes per year. No incentive to stop this. We suggested abolishing per minute dialup and introduce real flatrate dialup or if this cannot occur then have bands of dialup. 0-15 hours a month is €5. 15-50 is €x etc.

A drop in wholesale charges or cap on maximum dialup charges would discourage massive profiteering and soften the blow of those stuck on dialup. With per minute dialup gone it might encourage eircom to use broadband to make money and therefore increase availability.

Compare the current pricing to the flat rate voice calls eircom offers now.

** ComReg **

We asked for a directive to ComReg on quarterly reports:
Each one has to have line rental, mobile ARPU, landline composite basket,
broadband figures, LLU figures, all compared to the eu 25 and eu15. As per our press release this morning we want them to put a stop to the bull.

** Telecoms (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill **

We were told the draft heads will be out very soon and there will be a public consultation on the bill.


** Functional Internet Access **

USO is no longer Universal. ComReg bragged how only Sweden had 28.8k FIA and then riddled the idea with holes.

We asked the DCMNR to look into the number of carriers in the country and we pointed out to the Minister that new estates in this country still have lines which are pairgained. Lines which will not carry broadband which will add to the bottom line and help him reach his targets. We asked for this practice to be stopped but with ComReg's new USO, pairgains are still happening.

** eircom FWA license**

We made the DCMNR aware of the eircom FWA 3.5Ghz license and the lack of advertising for it and the lack of awareness of it even inside eircom. We asked for this precious piece of spectrum to be removed from eircom and to be auctioned off to someone who will use it. We made the Minister aware that we have repeatedly suggested this to ComReg.

There are a few areas too which we mentioned to the DCMNR but we will not discuss on this very public forum which judging from the server logs, is a very popular form for everyone in the telecoms business. Hi lads!

We will also keep private for now some of the feedback that the DCMNR gave to us. For me personally I think it was a hugely productive meeting and the Minister and his team got a crucial insight into the areas that are concerning the man on the street. From the attitude of the Minister and his team I think 2006 may be slightly better than 2005, though that doesn't say much since 2005 was a fcking disaster.

One last thing. Please keep sending complaints and feedback to ComReg and to the DCMNR. Also keep contacting your local politicians. It may be a slow system and you may not get feedback but his team does get what you are saying and they do take note.

eircomtribunal

Thanks for this information.

P.

ai ing

Congratulations on this. Sounds like it went pretty well.

Sponge Bob

I could not possibly spend 75 mins doing anything better . Well covered as always.

lucernarian

Good job Damien, it seems like that meeting was very fruitful. I hope the minister will take all of the issues you raised seriously. Who knows, with an election not too far away, his attention to these matters might be sharpened:)

alantc

It's be great if you could mention the cost of data on mobiles sometime. It's so expensive that it makes no sense to use it.

jwt

ARPU was mentioned in the meeting but not data....... ran out of time tbh

It was a generally positive meeting, although some of the more positive elements can't be discussed here for obvious reasons.

We were pretty blunt about our opinion of ComReg and compounded that with our press release about fudging the reports.

Overall, I'd say the DCMNR are absolutely sick to the teeth of broadband in Ireland, ComReg and a lot of the telcos not just eircom.

I got the feeling that the minister and his department would happily disolve/disband/break-up EVERY telco, regulator and lobby group and start from scratch with a clean slate.

I think everyone is reaching the end of their tether and the first opportunity to use a BIG stick that arises will be seized upon.

5 Million WASTED in legal fees, and the hard data never made it into court because ComReg caved in. They haven't pursued the appeal on the original eircom mandate, they're spinning stories in their reports. They havent reviewed flat rate charges (something even eircom is suprised about), their USO isn't universal, never fined a telco in their entire existence and generally are currently proving as useful as a wet paper bag.

When Isolde Goggin took over I honestly thought a sea-change* was on the way. At this rate we'll be harking back to the days of Etain Doyle!


I wonder if their performance related pay increases will be affected????????


John

Full fathom five thy father lies:
Of his bones are coral made:
Those are pearls that were his eyes:
Nothing of him that doth fade
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.

cgarvey

jwt wrote:

I wonder if their performance related pay increases will be affected????????

See, that is very significant. ComReg should have to set goals and use metrics to measure the performance of those goals. I'm not saying it should be pay-related (because the stereo-typical fat-arsed good-for-little civil servant type would not be impressed with some of the cushion being removed.. sorry if that was harsh). At least there's something real to measure. How are ComReg doing? They're doing nothing, and spending lots of money. However, having nothing to compare that performance against means that the fact that they are failing will be overlooked.

So on my 2006 wishlist is to have ComReg be made to set realistic goals/targets every 6 months, and for their failure/success to be monitored/corrected. It comes right after any form of FRIACO.

.cg

Sponge Bob

My opinion on Comreg has not changed. If Ireland had no regulator at all (for a while) we could not be worse off.

Abolish them , create something useful on foot of statute and with realistic powers and goals !