Launch of Broadband Benchmarking Study - Forfás

damien

Press Release from Forfas:

Forfás today (29th November 2004) published a Broadband Telecommunications Benchmarking report assessing Ireland’s competitiveness in relation to 21 countries with particular focus on the broadband telecommunications requirements of the enterprise sector. The report presents an update of progress over the past 12 months, and sets out recommended actions for 2005.

Speaking at the launch of the report Martin Cronin, Chief Executive, Forfás commented “Ireland has made substantial progress in a number of key areas since our last report in January. These include a rapid growth in DSL, improvements in DSL coverage and substantial reductions in the cost of DSL services. Business broadband continues to grow with an estimated 30% of small and medium sized companies now having a broadband connection. Ireland continues to be competitive both in terms of international and inter-regional connectivity.”

The Report also identifies a number of areas where Ireland is performing poorly or has slipped in the rankings.

“The rollout of broadband continues to be an issue and the results in this report show that we have slipped further behind both average and leading countries. The report estimates that compared with the average across countries surveyed, there is currently a broadband deficit in Ireland of up to 360,000 connections,” continued Mr Cronin.

The report attributes this slippage of Ireland’s position to:

a lack of growth in competing technologies, especially cable which is very strong in other countries a lack of competition and innovation within the DSL market

Key Report Recommendations

The report makes a number of recommendations to ensure that Ireland builds on the progress achieved over the last 12 months:

Encouraging the development of Inter-Platform Competition

The Department of Communications, Marine and Natural Resources to work with the Local Authorities and the Department of the Environment and Local Government to reduce the high charges involved in rolling out infrastructure by cable and telecoms operators ComReg to review broadband spectrum usage with the objective of encouraging operators to maximise the use of spectrum resources when delivering broadband services The Department of Communications, Marine and Natural Resources should update the Wireless Telegraphy Act (1926) as a matter of urgency to ensure regulatory certainty which allows for innovative access to spectrum and provides financial institutions with greater certainty with regard to investing in companies in the wireless space.

Promoting Competition and Innovation within the DSL Market

ComReg should continue to put pressure on the incumbent to reduce local loop unbundling charges further so that other companies can access local exchanges and provide innovative services.

Development and Use of State Networks

The Metropolitan Area Networks programme should be further developed by the Government and local authorities by:

Making additional funding available to expand the size of some of the constructed networks; Including and prioritising those centres of strategic importance to the development agencies and key centres for development under the National Spatial Strategy. Establish a competitive single national rate for national backbone access (over state owned networks). This would facilitate uptake of broadband by businesses and consumers in the regions, as well as helping to attract foreign investment to the regions. Encourage Dublin City Council to ensure open access to its 170km of fibre ducts within Dublin City.

damien

All their recommendations:
http://www.forfas.ie/publications/broadbandbenchmarking041126/broadbandbenchmarking041126.pdf

It is recommended that:
• The Department of Communications, Marine and Natural Resources work with the Local Authorities and the Department of Environment, Heritage and Local Government to reduce the high charges involved in rolling out infrastructure by cable and telecoms operators;

• ComReg review broadband spectrum usage with the objective of encouraging operators to maximise the use of spectrum resources when delivering broadband services. For example, ComReg should consider freeing up spectrum for WiMax technologies in order to increase the range and penetration of wireless services enabling them to be more competitive with DSL;

• The Department of Communications, Marine and Natural Resources should update the Wireless Telegraphy Act (1926) as a matter of urgency to ensure regulatory certainty that allows for innovative access to spectrum and provides financial institutions with greater surety with regard to investing in companies in the wireless space.

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• ComReg continue to put pressure on eircom to reduce their LLU charges further in order for other companies to access local exchanges and provide innovative services;

• Operators, with the support of the Department of Communications, Marine and Natural Resources, formally request ComReg to facilitate the development of remote collocation and sub-loop unbundling7 products.

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• The Department of Communications, Marine and Natural Resources monitor the take-up of dark fibre and duct space on e-Net’s network, to determine if current price levels are dampening demand excessively, as part of the Department’s commitment to benchmark e-Net’s prices internationally;

• The Metropolitan Area Networks programme should be further developed by the Government and local authorities by:
- Making additional funding available to expand the size of some of the constructed networks (e.g. Cork/Ringaskiddy);
- Including and prioritising those centres of strategic importance to the Development Agencies and key centres for development under the National Spatial Strategy (Shannon, Castlebar, Ennis, Killarney, Mallow, Tralee and Tuam).

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It is recommended that the Department of Communications, Marine and Natural Resources work with:

• ESB-Telecom to expand its network further, particularly focusing on linking the Metropolitan Area Networks and remaining NSS centres;

• Establish a competitive single national rate for national backbone access (over state owned networks). This would facilitate uptake of broadband by businesses and consumers in the regions, as well as helping to attract foreign investment to the regions.

• Dublin City Council to ensure open access to the 170km fibre ducts within Dublin City.

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• The Government continue to support the recommendations of the Telecom Strategy Group in their interim report of 2003 to increase demand for broadband services. Specifically, the recommendations to accelerate the implementation of Government online services and to mandate ducting for new housing developments should be implemented;

• As Government procurement contracts for telecommunications arise in 2005, greater consideration should be given to procuring advanced services from a range of telecoms providers in order to promote broadband demand, the rollout of infrastructure and competition in the telecoms market.

SkepticOne

Looks like a fairly balanced sensible set of proposals, not relying too much on any one measure or point of failure and gains credibility for that reason. At this stage there's no one magic bullet, but rather it will take a combination of measures working together. Each of the proposals seem to be well thought out.

TBH, this seems to me to be a better set of proposals than that of the Oireachtas Committee report - more thought through and coherent - although there is some overlap. It would be worth getting hold of the report prior to any meeting with DCMNR. ForFas have produced good reports in the past and are likely to be respected.

One flaw is that it has DSL 'coverage' for Ireland at 81% in the table on page 9. Eircom's propaganda department are to be congratulated here. This looks as if we are higher than Finland or Japan (both at 70% according to the table) for availability. This might lead the Government to divert funds into demand stimulation rather than competition stimulation whereas we know that it is competition that is lacking leading to chronic underinvestment by the incumbent and a general lack of choice and quality of broadband offerings.

The report does mention that line failures are standing at 22% but they fail to take this into account when calculating their 90%.

On the plus side, the report does emphasise the importance of platform competition and recognises the limits of simply reselling from the point of view inovative service offerings. It is good also that they want the Government to look into pricing on the MANs as well as building more of them. Wireless and LLU operators as well as any other platforms will all benefit from cheap backhaul that these MANs could provide. They have largely failed if they can't do this.

damien

Dempsey was on Radio 1 this morning about this report. Will try and get a transcript later.

eircomtribunal

damien.m wrote:

Dempsey was on Radio 1 this morning about this report. Will try and get a transcript later.

Great. Waiting for it.

There are some serious flaws in that Forfas report. I am waiting to see them used by interested parties

Example: "Internet penetration continues to grow in 2004 with Ireland’s residential penetration rate currently standing at 46%".

What a bull-sh*te statement!
Only a tiny footnote explains that we are only at 37%. It is simply wrong to use the 46% figure (which is the statistical subgroup figure for fixed line holders), a footnote does not make it right. Comreg have over the years used this self-serving figure trickery and mislead us into believing we were doing all right, when we should have been told that we were not doing all right.
P.