Isolde Goggin, New Comreg Commissioner.

Moriarty

Tum tee tum..

Minister Noel Dempsey Appoints New Chairperson To ComReg


Dublin, Tuesday, 30th November, 2004
Noel Dempsey T.D., Minister for Communications, Marine and Natural
Resources today announced the appointment of Ms. Isolde Goggin as
Chairperson of the Commission for Communications Regulation for a one year
period with effect from 1 December 2004.



Ms. Goggin has served as a ComReg Commissioner since its establishment in
December 2002. She brings to the post many years of relevant experience,
including being Member and Director of the Regulated Markets Division of
the Competition Authority.



The Chairperson of the Commission has been appointed for a one year term
since the Office was established in 2002. Ms. Goggin will succeed Mr.
John Doherty, the current Chair of the Commission for Communications
Regulation. The Minister paid tribute to the work undertaken by John
Doherty during his year as Chairperson in further developing the telecoms
market in Ireland and in particular in helping to create the conditions
for increased competition in the market and higher broadband uptake.



A third commissioner will be appointed later this week.



The Minister said that he looks forward to working with the ComReg team in
continuing to develop the communications sector.



For further media information, please contact:



Grace Cappock Press AdvisorOffice: +353 1 678 2440
Mobile: 087 202 4971
Tom Mc Loughlin Press OfficerOffice +353 1 678 2441Mobile: 087 937 0780

Tel: +353-1-6782443 ¨ Fax: +353-1-6782739 ¨ E-Mail:
press.office@dcmnr.gov

eircomtribunal

Moriarty wrote:

Minister Noel Dempsey Appoints New Chairperson To ComReg

Damn it. No more private John Doherty blogs.

P.

spongebob

he can still blog away ........as an ordinary commissioner of course. His thoughts and observations could become even more astute .

M

damien

More on the new Chairperson:

Prior to her appointment as Commissioner, Ms Goggin was Director of Regulated Markets Division at the Competition Authority from 1996 to 2002.

Isolde Goggin worked for nine years with Telecom Éireann (now Eircom), the then State-owned telecommunications incumbent, initially in a variety of engineering areas and later in the commercial area in the International Division.

From 1989 to 1991 she worked in DGXIII (now DG Information Society) of the European Commission where she acted as an expert consultant to the Satellite Policy Unit concerned with EU policy for future satellite-based fixed, mobile, broadcasting and position-fixing services, including issues such as frequency planning and orbital positions. From 1991 to 1996 she was a business manager with Ericsson Systems Expertise Ltd., a subsidiary of the Swedish multinational telecommunications company, based in Dun Laoghaire, near Dublin.

Ms Goggin qualified from Trinity College, Dublin, with an engineering degree and obtained a Masters in Business Administration from University College, Dublin. She also holds a Postgraduate Diploma in European Competition law and is a Chartered Member of the Institution of Electrical Engineers.

Impressive. Just been looking at the Competition Authority's website and looking at her speeches there. She also handled herself very well at the last Oireachtas committee meeting.

Slutmonkey57b

Wasn't she recently seen spouting eircom press releases at one of the shindigs?

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=2007235&postcount=7

Ah, yes. Yes she was. God help us all indeed.

"Regulation can be rolled back". Where? tim-buck-****ing-too? Surely if we roll back the carpet we'll only see all the lies and junk that have been shovelled under it for the past 5 years. Goggin can't want that.

Comreg need to take lessons from the experts about rolling things back and forth over in England - the ball boys at wimbledon. It's about the right technical level.

vinnyfitz

Hang on Slutmonkey.
Instead of paraphrasing Peter's one line quote and assuming its a complete summary of her comments, why don't you read her full speech to the Dublin Economics Workshop here and give feedback on it?
Which particular points that she was making do you disagree with and why?

I don't think its useful to lash out wildly at ComReg. Constructive critique of their positions, on the other hand would probably help the committee a lot.

damien

While time will tell how Ms. Goggin performs, I've got a strangely positive feeling about the new ComReg boss. As vinnyfitz pointed out, read that speech she delivered, or any other speeches. She certainly seems like someone that is not an apologist for eircom and understands what needs to be done.

For bonus points the lady is a techy and understands what her organisation is talking about. From her cv that I posted too it seems certain that her star is still on the rise and once she finishes up with ComReg she won't be sliding into mediocrity.

(/me awaits Dahamsta calling him a kiss-ass)

dahamsta

damien.m wrote:

(/me awaits Dahamsta calling him a kiss-ass)

I'll allow it.

I'm not a monster (honest), I'm willing to give anyone a chance to prove themselves. However she's want to do it pretty bleedin' rapid like, cos Doherty just continued on where Doyle left off. We need sea-change, not "new commish, just like the old commish".

adam

spongebob

Vinny did ask you for your opinion of her speech to the economists in October.

I think that the second half of it is very good (once she stopped spouting Buttsys propoganda on how competitive Ireland is ) and once she got into Competition analysis and explaining the EU Regulation framework.

In fact the explanation of the EU Framework is top drawer IMO .

M

Slutmonkey57b

vinnyfitz wrote:

Hang on Slutmonkey.
Instead of paraphrasing Peter's one line quote and assuming its a complete summary of her comments, why don't you read her full speech to the Dublin Economics Workshop here and give feedback on it?
Which particular points that she was making do you disagree with and why?

I don't think its useful to lash out wildly at ComReg. Constructive critique of their positions, on the other hand would probably help the committee a lot.

Because my ComReg - regulated line is such a POS it'd take me 10 minutes to download that atm! Not that I'm bitter or anything.

Well, she seems fond of the old "Basket prices" bit, which is a handy eircom scam. She boasts about the residential basket price being about the EU average, while handily ignoring the fact that fixed prices are the highest in europe, while usage levels are among the lowest. What that means is that the only reason Comreg is able to boast that prices are "average" is that residential users don't use their phones. Instead they use mobiles - because of the massive fixed cost of the landline. The same is true of business pricing.

I also like her designation of "wholesale unbundled access to the local loop" as being "finished" ie in final SMP designation, without the qualification that is is a "****ing shambles and/or a criminal embarrassment to any self-respecting regulator".

"one possible trend may be to regard telecommunications as a service like any other, with availability and cost being determined by the market".

I think you'll find that requires a regulator that gets up off its arse and challenges the status quo dearie.

"overall, regulation has resulted in a good deal for consumers and promotion of competition"

Actually, all it's done is expose the lack of competition and seriously abused the consumer. Speaking as an expert, ie a consumer.

jwt

dahamsta wrote:

I'm willing to give anyone a chance to prove themselves. However she's want to do it pretty bleedin' rapid like, cos Doherty just continued on where Doyle left off. We need sea-change, not "new commish, just like the old commish".

adam

Snap

I'm prepared to give her the benefit of doubt, especially having read transcripts of her answers to Oireachtas hearings.

BUT.........

John

eircomtribunal

jwt wrote:

I'm prepared to give her the benefit of doubt, especially having read transcripts of her answers to Oireachtas hearings.

John

I must have read a different transcript. In mine she had nothing to say that gave me any warm feelings.

She told all the old fairy-tales about ComReg's superb action against the dialler-scam, their customer advice leaflets, their new askComreg service and the broadband wonder:
"Broadband provision started slowly but is increasing quickly. The annualised growth rate is 460%. It is mostly DSL but we place a great deal of emphasis on competition in fixed wireless and cable, on which Ireland missed the boat, unfortunately, because of the timing of the dotcom boom. However, the numbers are creeping upwards with cable services being provided by Chorus and others."

So the "timing of the dotcom boom" is the cause of our broadband woes! Thank god fo that, I had nearly thought it could have had to do with the failure of our regulator; not least since other countries fared very well without cable competition and the dotcom timing.


On the whole sale line rental, she did not bother to read the DCMNR directive, which wanted WLR not to be single billing, but more.


Quotes:
John Doherty: I refer to single billing wholesale line rental charges…However, this figure is approaching 50,000 and I expect it will exceed 60,000, which will be a considerable success.

Ms Goggin: With regard to other ongoing activities, Mr. Doherty mentioned the launch of single billing in June. The idea behind this is that the issuing of two bills to consumers was a barrier to competition. Consumers received a bill from Eircom for line rental and another from their operator for calls. That was not clear to many consumers when they signed up to new operators. We introduced the wholesale line rental single billing product for this reason. Consumers receive one bill which covers line rental and calls and do not suffer the inconvenience of paying twice."

Dermot Ahern clearly asked for more than a single billing product in his March 2004 policy directive. He even took out the word single billing from the directive, as he explains in the

“Minister’s Comments
The reference to ‘single billing’ has been removed. This recognises that single billing is one of a number of important issues to be addressed in the development of a successful wholesale product.

Finalised Text of policy direction
“The Minister directs that ComReg will introduce a wholesale line rental product for voice and data services by 31st March 2004. ComReg will ensure that the product is accessible, affordable and with sufficient margin for telecommunications operators to enable them to stimulate and drive competition in this market. ComReg will work with industry to ensure the smooth introduction of this product and will use whatever regulatory interventions are appropriate to address any delays or difficulties which may arise.”

ComReg did not introduce what’s demanded of them in the policy directive. The pricing structure of “Eircom resale minus 10%” is appalling and contravenes the intentions of the policy directive. ComReg have belatedly introduced single billing, but no whole-sale line rental as envisaged by the minister.

P.S.:The most damning answer about the “success” of ComReg’s socalled whole-sale line rental comes perhaps directly from Eircom director Philip Nolan; (RTE interview 24 November 2005)

JOHN MURRAY:
“Now the big revolution in the telephone business in recent times, in the fixed line business, has been the introduction of single billing and it’s estimated that Eircom has lost fifty thousand customers in the few months that it’s been in. Isn’t this a worrying trend?

PHILIP NOLAN:
“Well I mean… it’s not a trend that we’re happy about. But having said that with the introduction of… of competition we expected this and you know it’s not unexpected that people who are on CPS and have moved for their calls would follow that by moving their line for the single bill, after all that was the purpose behind introducing this thing, so I think it would be… it would be surprising if that didn’t happen.”


Her speech to the economists did not impress me either. The fact that she knows her tech/reg stuff is not necessary a good omen. Her lopsided interpretation of the OECD charts about our telephony and leased line competitive stance needs to be challenged (The cheap international connectivity has nothing to do with Comreg's ability, but with the willingness of the gov to subsidise these connections. Our telephony is not as competitive as these charts seem to suggest: The OECD/Teligen basket methodology only measures the incumbents' pricing. A fact that is of course not worth mentioning. One look at the domestic tel price chart shows that in most other countries the consumer can actually get cheaper telephony than we can get, because their lower fixed price element - blue column - allows competitors to offer cheaper call charges.) With bb household penetration rates of 20% average our EU counterparts will soon use VoIP in substantial numbers.
Since February Ireland has fallen from place 4 to place 8, and is now above the EU-15 average in this price basket.

P.

SkepticOne

The WLR directive was a piece of political opportunism on the part of DCMNR. WLR had been on the cards for months prior to the directive and, in fact, one of the increases in line rental awarded by ComReg was to compensate Eircom for any possible loss due to the fact other operators would be selling on the line rental 'service'.

So, far from being the solution to spiraling line rental from the Eircom monopoly, WLR was actually used as a pretexts for granting one of the line rental increases. WLR itself was more of a sop to the Eircom monopoly resellers than anything else. Most of the complaints from the resellers concerned more the margin between Eircom's wholesale and retail (allowing a profit for the OAOs) rather than the absolute wholesale value which would have been of interest to consumers.

It was never about improving the lot of consumers in the first place. If you think about it, how could it ever have been? In normal commerce, savings are passed on to the consumer by cutting out the midleman and buying direct from source. This process is sometimes referred to as disintermediation.

In telecommunications, for some reason, we are led to believe that the opposite applies. If prices are too high, then the solution, we are told, is to bring in more middlemen!

Wholesalers originally established themselves as a central point from which retailers could purchase stock originating from many manufacturers. This saved on the retailers from collecting from many manufacturers and saved the manufacturers from delivering to many retailers. In the supply chain the manufacturers, wholesalers, and retailers each provided service that ultimately benefited the consumer.

I think we can see that this model doesn't fit the telecommunications market at all. There are several reasons I think it persists:

1. It allows a monopolist to hide behind a layer of 'competing' resellers and avoid being seen as a monopolist.
2. It allows a class of businesses to exist that don't invest much but have the right due to regulation to make a profit nevertheless.
3. It allows the regulator to talk about success in terms of competition despite the reality of little actual competition.

Everyone wins except the consumer.

seamus

Split from other thread, as requested....a day late

jwt

In comparison to the other ComReg and Eircom respondents in the Oireachtas hearing she was a mile ahead. I'm going to chance holding my breath. If I turn blue call an ambulance.

OK?


John