Telecoms Bill delayed once again

damien

Telecoms revamp Bill delayed

THE Telecoms Miscellaneous Bill, which is designed to give consumers more protection and ComReg more power, has been delayed again.

It will not go before the Dáil until January 2007 sources said yesterday, despite assurances from Communications Minister Noel Demspey that this would happen before Christmas.

The Bill was expected to be before the Dáil earlier this year and there were hopes it would be fast-tracked following the situation that arose in October when 40,000 Smart Telecom fixed line customers were left without telecom services.

When the Electronic Communications (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill, 2005 is introduced, it is understood that it could be loosely based on existing US legislation, whereby carriers cannot discontinue service to the public without prior authorisation from the Federal Communications Commission.

The Bill is also designed to give telecoms regulator ComReg more muscle.

When it is made law, telecom firms could face fines of up to €4m, or 10pc of turnover, under the new penalties.

When the DCMNR lost 4 key people in the past 6 months and can't find replacements willing to work from Cavan, it is no wonder they can't get a lightweight bill drafted. Maybe the transition year work experience students will be able to help out after Christmas?

thebman

Does this new bill actually give Comreg worthwhile powers or do we have any further details about what is in it yet?

TimTim

damien.m wrote:

Maybe the transition year work experience students will be able to help out after Christmas?

Hmm, My brother needs something to do for work experience, I'll mention it to him.

kaizersoze

brim4brim wrote:

Does this new bill actually give Comreg worthwhile powers or do we have any further details about what is in it yet?

Have a read.
http://www.mhc.ie/filestore/documents/Draft%20Bill%202006.pdf

lucernarian

This bill seems to be of little consolation to those who have been left down by the telecoms industry in this country. From my possibly flawed reading of the draft, if a company overcharges customers by a total of e.g. €50,000, they will be fined up to €5,000 when convicted. Is there an obligation for the convicted company to even refund the money?

The bill proposed may give the regulator more muscle, but it won't give ComReg any more backbone.

thebman

To_be_confirmed wrote:

This bill seems to be of little consolation to those who have been left down by the telecoms industry in this country. From my possibly flawed reading of the draft, if a company overcharges customers by a total of e.g. €50,000, they will be fined up to €5,000 when convicted. Is there an obligation for the convicted company to even refund the money?

The bill proposed may give the regulator more muscle, but it won't give ComReg any more backbone.

Well they'd have to refund the customer I imagine if they overcharged but it doesn't have to be stated in this document because it is elsewhere under some other act I imagine.

I agree that 5,000 Euro is way too low.

They can do 2,000 Euro continous fines until a problem is fixed and they do have to report on what they are doing from my quick read of the report so hopefully they'll act a little more. Hopefully they'll actually dish out continous fines too as 2,000 Euro isn't that much either.

At the end of the day though, you don't want to cripple the companies if they made a mistake but you do want to punish them which I think is the idea of such low limits on the fines.

However my problem is that those are the Max. fines meaning that they can fine them less than that. So why not have it at 50,000 as a threat but never fine that amount (unless something really major happens).

Seems illogical to not let the regulator fine large amounts. They are essentially saying there is no wrong a communications company can do that justifies a fine bigger than 5,000 Euro or 2,000 Euro for a continous fine.

damien

brim4brim wrote:

Seems illogical to not let the regulator fine large amounts.

They don't fine small amounts either so why should the bill increase it? Waste of paper really.