USO Discussion

ED E

Discussion sparked today by this:

Eir launches legal challenge against rural phone services duty

State company believes it should not be stuck with cost of uneconomic rural phone lines

NB: Incorrect here

Under its USO, Eir is obliged to connect homes and businesses in rural areas up to a cost threshold of €7,000 after which the customer must cover part of the connection cost.

Should read €1000 as of 16/65 Decision.

Article on the IT


Glossary:
USO - Universal Service Obligation: OpenEir have to provide you a line where reasonable (PSTN and 56k Dialup)
AFL - Access at a fixed location: Telephony at one address. Previously always a twisted copper pair, but now we see radio based systems coming in as a cheaper alternative
SMP - Significant Market Power: OpenEir has an advantage inherited from the state funded P&T/TE
RAP - Regulated Access Products

Core issues:
- Joe Soap can build a house in the middle of nowhere and (until recently) OpenEir had to run copper a few clicks out just from him [Prime examples of this in Waterford, 40 poles for 2x dwellings]
- RAP costs are the same everywhere: A user in an estate in Cork City with 4m between drops pays the same wholesale cost as part of their premium as a user on the Donegal peninsula with 1km between drops when the latter has emergency repairs every Jan/Feb when the storms blow their lines to bits

FYI: ESB already charge a rural and urban rate to reflect such a balance (somewhat)

ED E

damienirel wrote: »

ED E wrote: »

damienirel wrote: »

Yeah it's a mess and needs some real leadership from Government. As Eir is a private company and not some other tax payer funded swallow hole. So they will have to be heard, and in fairness they probably will end up winning.

It's unfair on those who live in towns and cities to avail of services that cost far less to provide than those in rural areas(myself included in the latter group - I don't mind paying more than urban dwellers for line rental if it wasn't already so expensive. Comreg are the real problem making stupid outdated laws and then getting sued. They have always been a complete waste of tax payers money. What they should be trying to curb is open-eirs extortionate line rental charges but they've been asleep at the wheel.

Your line rental isnt line rental, its paying for the entire service. Eg:
€40/pm
-€30/pm to OpenEir - Equipment, Field Staff, Emergency Repairs, Insurance, ESB, Telco batteries, core network, NMC/NOC, plant alterations, build and dev
-€10/pm to Retail Op - Customer Care, IP blocks, Transit

Its not expensive. We're expensive for Europe/OECD but if you adjust for our dwelling patterns and the onus of the USO then we're really quite OK.

Ok then if you are taking dwelling patterns into consideration then the uso should remain. That was my point all along. They shouldn't be allowed to cherry pick who they provide to and then expect to collect expensive line rental.

Well that's exactly it.

1. Drop USO
2. Shed the rural customer base slowly and allow the NBP provider in their segment sort them out
3. Make OpenEir competitive. Right now xDSL is almost as expensive as HFC access that latter being much faster. If 80Mb VDSL was €35/mo(all in) and VMI are charging €50/mo for 240Mb then there might be some actual competition.

damienirel

ED E wrote: »

Well that's exactly it.

1. Drop USO
2. Shed the rural customer base slowly and allow the NBP provider in their segment sort them out
3. Make OpenEir competitive. Right now xDSL is almost as expensive as HFC access that latter being much faster. If 80Mb VDSL was €35/mo(all in) and VMI are charging €50/mo for 240Mb then there might be some actual competition.

This thread might not last long - I totally concur with all of your points!

ED E

damienirel wrote: »

This thread might not last long - I totally concur with all of your points!

I'm sure we'll see BK chime in with a super researched post at some point.

ItHurtsWhenIP

damienirel wrote: »

so you agree with charging 7k to get a phone line installed?

Brought this over ... No I think €7,000 was a stupid amount to enforce on them. I fully agree that a rural dweller (such as myself) should need to pay that bit more for a service, so I pay the rural tariff for electricity and do not grumble. If I had to pay a bit more for a phone line, I would. Fortunately I have a phone line here (disconnected number a long time ago) and when I have the men in their tractors with the hedge cutting gear doing my boreen I point it out to them and warn them not to touch it.

As was highlighted in the first post above 40 poles being provided for 2 houses is crazy stuff.

damienirel

MMFITWGDV wrote: »

Brought this over ... No I think €7,000 was a stupid amount to enforce on them. I fully agree that a rural dweller (such as myself) should need to pay that bit more for a service, so I pay the rural tariff for electricity and do not grumble. If I had to pay a bit more for a phone line, I would. Fortunately I have a phone line here (disconnected number a long time ago) and when I have the men in their tractors with the hedge cutting gear doing my boreen I point it out to them and warn them not to touch it.

As was highlighted in the first post above 40 poles being provided for 2 houses is crazy stuff.

Have to agree that there is a limit to what they should be forced to provide but after that if you want it you should have the option to pay rather than just saying you can't have it. I just feel that eir are always trying to draw the last drop of blood from everything.

clohamon

Reeling in the Years.

It's 2014 2016 2017 2019 2021 and Eircom are taking ComReg to court again.

This time it seems to be about the process of appointing them as interim USP from July through October 2021. Eircom seem to think the outcome was pre-ordained. It's also clear they want to stand down their copper network as soon as possible.

Notification of proceedings here.

https://www.comreg.ie/media/2021/09/ComReg-2192.pdf

ComReg USO Decision here.

https://www.comreg.ie/media/2021/06/ComReg-2171.pdf

Meanwhile in separate proceedings from 2019, the wider question of the cost of USO being an 'unfair burden' is awaiting a procedural ruling following a referral to CJEU.