What is Comreg / Eircom doing wrong?

DaSilva

To me Eircom aren't giving us a good deal. We can't get packages for broadband similar to other European countries. Eircom don't have too, because there is no real competition for DSL in Ireland because nearly all the other providers are simply giving you Eircoms package with their name on it. This is what I thought comreg would do, by forcing Eircom to open up exchanges to other companies, but its not happening.

I don't know if I'm 100% right because I dont know the technical details. Can someone provide them for me?

Why aren't Eircom doing LLU everywhere?
Why aren't comreg forcing Eircom too?
Why does comreg allow Eircom to increase line rental to massive ammounts, especially considering they own most of the network, therefore making nearly every person with a phone line pay it.

I wan't to email TD's comreg, anyone I can, but I don't want to email them with half ignorant emails, as they will be easily dismissed and just a waste of time. Can anyone help?

uncle_sam_ie

Why? Because TD Noel Dempsey is an empty suit. The buck stops with him.

smellslikeshoes

DaSilva wrote:

I wan't to email TD's comreg, anyone I can, but I don't want to email them with half ignorant emails, as they will be easily dismissed and just a waste of time. Can anyone help?

Won't really matter if they are ignorant emails or not they will be bined fairly lively.

watty

LLU isn't real competion either as the company must still rent the line from Eircom and can't do an analogue service on it. The Wholesale LLUed line rental is still 17 Euro, more than some retail non-llu line rentals in Europe.

The ONLY real eircom competition possible in Ireland is via fibre direct to home or Wirelss. At those prices and also initial cost for LLU it is not viable competition.

Every 4 months just using Bitstream resale and CPS , BT is selling more than Smart's (the main LLUer) entire customer base. Eircom makes the lion share of the Profits.

Heads I win, Tails you Lose is eircoms resale motto.

Foxwood

watty wrote:

LLU isn't real competion either as the company must still rent the line from Eircom and can't do an analogue service on it. The Wholesale LLUed line rental is still 17 Euro, more than some retail non-llu line rentals in Europe.

From page 18 of the LLU Access Reference Offer Price List:

Recurring Charge
Service               Price €       Applicability
ULMP Monthly Rental    €14.65       Applies from the 01/12/04 to the 09/12/05
ULMP Monthly Rental    €15.09       Applies from 10/12/05 to 30/11/06
ULMP Monthly Rental    €15.68       Effective from 01/12/06 to 01/12/07

On past performance we can expect LLU to go up again shortly, when international experience tells us that it needs to go down.

thebman

What I want to know is why the hell do the media not cover this? Do journalists not have phone lines or use broadband?

Surely if my brother and father who know nothing about broadband knows eircom shouldn't get line rental increase, then comreg should know and not allow it and if they do allow it then the media should be picking on the issue and informing consumers.

There seems to be no coverage of this in general media. A little more recently but nothing really. It is ridiculous how little interest this area gets giving most households pay monthly bills to these companies and are getting ripped off. Why don't people seem to care they are being ripped off?

bk

watty wrote:

The ONLY real eircom competition possible in Ireland is via fibre direct to home or Wirelss.

And that is no competition at all. In these developments the fibre providers become mini-monopolies, offering sub standard services.

Just look at all the complaints and problems with Smart Visions service including multiple days with no TV, BB and phone:
http://support.smarttelecom.ie/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=11

watty

Foxwood wrote:

From page 18 of the LLU Access Reference Offer Price List:

Recurring Charge
Service               Price €       Applicability
ULMP Monthly Rental    €14.65       Applies from the 01/12/04 to the 09/12/05
ULMP Monthly Rental    €15.09       Applies from 10/12/05 to 30/11/06
ULMP Monthly Rental    €15.68       Effective from 01/12/06 to 01/12/07

On past performance we can expect LLU to go up again shortly, when international experience tells us that it needs to go down.

I presume those prices exclude VAT, WEEE, Delivery etc

Foxwood

watty wrote:

I presume those prices exclude VAT, WEEE, Delivery etc

They're wholesale prices, so no VAT. It's a "service", not a product, so no WEEE.

As for delivery, it'll cost an LLU operator a 5 figure sum to unbundle their first line in any given exchange - even if there are 10 other LLU operators already servicing that exchange.

So while an LLU operator might be interested in an exchange with 70,000 lines, where there's a decent chance that they might be able to spread that 5 figure sum over a couple of thousand customers, don't expect anyone to spend 15K to unbundle lines in a rural exchange with 1500 lines.

watty

Yes the WEEE stealth tax (which I beleive does next to nothing for recyling) was a poor jest.

netwhizkid

Comreg are doing everything wrong in my opinion, The should enforce LLU down Eircom's throat and to heck with the vested interests like Fianna Fail

Eircom are now a Private Company and have had very little regulation since they were privatised only yes men giving numerous line-rental increases. As bk said there is practically no competition at all except for competing platforms like Fibre and Wireless but these in turn are only mini-monopolies of their own.

The entire blame for the mess of Ireland's Broadband lays squarely at the door of this Fianna Fail/Pds Government. They Privatised Eircom and threw the network out to the vultures and we now have the ludicrous situation that Ireland has a Private Telecommunications Monopoly rather than a Public one. Things are better than before I will admit as prices of phonecall's and Dial-up have fallen but in general that is it.

There have been no new services launched recently since the privatisation except Caller-ID and Landline Texts. (Wow big deal) When the majority of Europe's Telco's were getting ready for to put in the big investment into broadband infrastructure, Eircom began promoting ISDN.

Their are only 2 solutions that I can see to this entire quagmire.

Solution 1.

Either ComReg take on Eircom and force LLU on them and bring in USO's for Broadband and force them to enable them rural exchanges with minimum grant aid eg. Community Group Broadband if they can ever sort that mess out. This is the sort of approach the Government are trying at the moment but they are making such a bad job of the idea that it is laughable.

Solution 2.

Split Eircom into Network and Retail, I now myself think that this is the only answer as Solution 1. is just simply not working. Eircom should be split in two with Network and Retail kept separate and LLU introduced and properly regulated. Fair Access for BT, Eircom Retail etc. This I think will have to be done along with giving ComReg more power's.

Their should also be a clause put in Solution 2. that if Eircom does not roll out 100% Broadband to the Republic of Ireland excluding VSAT their should also be a clause put in that for every missed deadline, Eircom would be fined either a percentage of turnover or else a fixed Penalty say €5 Million Euro per half year. This wouldn't be long putting the skids under them to roll out Broadband and this agreement could also stipulate that if Eircom Fails that The Network should be Nationalised and take it into state-ownership (which it should not have left it in the 1st place)

I feel that this would suit Eircom's New Owners Babcock and Brown and the ESOT with their 35% Holding. If the Government paid Babcock and Brown a fair price for the Network and transfer all Eircom's Network Assets and Network Employee's over to state Ownership and build the network from there with Line-Rental Money (which could be cut to lower levels) and with State tax payers money.

One of the biggest reasons Eircom is in a mess is since the Privatisation they have hired no new Network staff only spent millions on cutting down the numbers. While they have hired Call Centre staff etc. this isn't helping the situation. There was once a time in Ireland when the Holy Trinity were the jobs to go for, ESB, Telecom Eireann and the Gardai, Now the ESB is on its knees and everyday there is a danger of blackouts and the Gardai is amongst the only few good State Jobs left. Eircom's Network needs many new employees beside wasting millions on Contractors who only do shoddy overpriced work.

A similar situation is now about to happen in France with Gaz de France, The French State-Owned Gas Network, The French Prime minister Dominique de Villepin wants to sell Gaz de France to Suez (who are a private Multinational who specialises in in water, electricity and natural gas supply) This will see Gaz de France privatised ala Eircom.

And guess who is egging them on from Brussels, None other than that embarrassment to the fine county of Kildare Charlie McCreevy. Networks like this and Eircom's should never fall into Private Ownership as at the end of the day it is the consumer who will suffer to the benefit of the absentee Shareholders. However the French Socialists have vowed to immediately Nationalise Gaz de France if it is sold when they are elected again.

Moral of the Story: Important Services Network's have no place in the Private Sector, It is not Political but just sound Business sense.

Capt'n Midnight

watty wrote:

LLU isn't real competion either as the company must still rent the line from Eircom and can't do an analogue service on it. The Wholesale LLUed line rental is still 17 Euro, more than some retail non-llu line rentals in Europe.

You are forgetting about setup costs so it's worse than that.
I have no idea what the current costs are, but time was the margin on LLU compared to Retail price was so small that it took 18 months for a reseller to make back the money it had to pay to eircom to setup the LLU, and that's not counting the cost of the reseller in renting equipemnt in exchanges or providing the service.

Prices - but I don't know which apply here due to eircom FUD
http://www.eircomwholesale.ie/regulatory/reg_details.asp?id=47

Liam Byrne

BT is selling more than Smart's (the main LLUer) entire customer base

I would hope that once GLUMP is properly implemented that this will change; up to now, not a lot of people would've been overly keen to switch, given that you had to change your phone number in order to do so.

It's pretty telling, though, that the mobile operators were relatively happy to implement number portability, since they all could gain if they had good packages that were reasonably priced; end result - the customer gains, choosing the best package for them without the need to change number and reprint business cards and advertise the change to clients.

Compare that to the monopoly that eircom has; only eircom would lose, so as a result we all continue to lose out while they laugh all the way to the bank!

OFDM

netwhizkid wrote:

Comreg are doing everything wrong in my opinion, The should enforce LLU down Eircom's throat and to heck with the vested interests like Fianna Fail

The minister for communications hasn't given Comreg the power to enforce LLU. Thanks to crap legislation created by civil servants anything Comreg do can be appealed to the high court and dragged out for three years...

damien

OFDM wrote:

The minister for communications hasn't given Comreg the power to enforce LLU. Thanks to crap legislation created by civil servants anything Comreg do can be appealed to the high court and dragged out for three years...

If ComReg went to Court then this might be true butithey does not, instead the spineless regulator capitulates and withdraws their directives. Let us not forget that a company as well as an individual has the right to seek an appeal.

It would be good for ComReg's powers to be put under judicial review instead of the years of pprevaricating we have now. ComReg should face off the telcos at every step and go all the way until there is a final court ruling. Instead ComReg is the biggest prick tease around. Won't go all the way the first time or the second or the third or the fourth etc. etc.

watty

Capt'n Midnight wrote:

You are forgetting about setup costs so it's worse than that.
I have no idea what the current costs are, but time was the margin on LLU compared to Retail price was so small that it took 18 months for a reseller to make back the money it had to pay to eircom to setup the LLU, and that's not counting the cost of the reseller in renting equipemnt in exchanges or providing the service.
http://www.eircomwholesale.ie/regulatory/reg_details.asp?id=47

I can't see how Smart makes money either within YEARs or ever at its current prices. When you add Churn, overheads etc as well as setup Capex and rental.

Capt'n Midnight

watty wrote:

I can't see how Smart makes money either within YEARs or ever at its current prices. When you add Churn, overheads etc as well as setup Capex and rental.

Forgot to mention that the fix time may be longer if there is a repair as you have to diagnose the problem with the reseller who then goes to eircom who seem, in any dealing I've had with them, to treat the SLA not as a limit, but as a starting point. IMHO It's almost as if there could be an unwritten policy to encourge customers to go back to them by undermining the competition.