ComReg: Shared LLU price to drop to 39cents

damien

http://www.comreg.ie/whats_new/default.asp?ctype=5&nid=101987

The Commission for Communications Regulation has proposed cutting the price of Local Loop Unbundling Line share from €9 to 39 cent.

http://www.rte.ie/business/2005/0321/comreg.html

I'm sure most of us didn't see that since there were other BIGGER things in the news today.

WizZard

Cool, for a moment I thought the title read drop by 39c, and I was poised for a sarky comment!

cgarvey

Cool, that's a nice drop .. haven't ESat been doing LSP LLU? It was certainly the only option available to me (for their business DSL) a year and a half ago.

Also, will that be part of the LLU process that's been taken to the high court. If not is that much of a hike not likely to be fought?
.cg

damien

Well eircom still make full line rental from the line and whatever they make on voice, plus the 39cents. What the likes of Smart will be doing is taking the whole line and I'm sure EsatBT might be doing that too. This was not part of the process ComReg are going to court about. This was a proposal going back a good while. I don't see eicom really fighting this, but then they do like paying barristers...

eircomtribunal

damien.m wrote:

This was not part of the process ComReg are going to court about. This was a proposal going back a good while. I don't see eicom really fighting this, but then they do like paying barristers...

From the response Eircom gave to the consultation (alleging the proposed directive to be illegal etc, see quote from Comreg's paper below) and the fact that ComReg are giving this a second consultation, Eircom might well be poised to draw this one as well through the courts.
This is where a small crew of people in Comreg have a really difficult task. The might of Eircom's legal battle tanks (money not an issue; expertise of the highest level bought in) against a small team, which has to be extremely careful not to trip up once. I am mostly under-impressed by our regulator's actions, not with this case.

I am not sure which commercial results the proposed 39c half-unbundling pricing will bring. But if exchange access and automation of transfer processes get sorted out this will give many options for competing providers. Eircom is worried.

P.

View of fifth respondent

A fifth respondent makes a number of observations in relation alleged legal / procedural defects and economic issues. Overall, this respondent is critical of the consultation process. It alleges that there are weaknesses in the ComReg process – e.g. that line share is not defined, that the consultation paper should be withdrawn, that ComReg does not provide a reasonable consultation period, that the ARO has been revisited several times and the issue of line share has never been raised during these reviews, that there is no reference made to previous consultations drafted by ComReg on this topic, that ComReg’s obligation to exercise its powers transparently has not been fulfilled that there is a lack of analysis and that the transparency obligation is not fulfilled and that the incumbent’s property rights would be impaired. This respondent also states that ComReg has failed to refer to a recognised set of cost recovery principles which it cites as being frequently used by other National Regulatory Authorities...

dahamsta

damien.m wrote:

What the likes of Smart will be doing is taking the whole line and I'm sure EsatBT might be doing that too.

Any sign of EsatBT taking a position on the High Court action? I can understand that on the one hand they'd be disinclined to row in in support of a competitor, but Eircom is the common enemy in these circumstances, both have a lot to gain from it and there's a hell of a lot of market share left available for both.

Then again, EsatBT haven't always been adept at leveraging the media. Smart seem to be leaning heavily on it, perhaps too heavily. (I've already wondered in the BB forum how they can pull this off with the proposed LLU pricing, never mind without!)

adam

Slutmonkey57b

Esat are far too complacent an organisation to challenge eircom in the courts. NoLimits was their one stab at being innovative and they're not going to go back down that route. Even their existing LLU was only undertaken because they knew they'd have subsidy backup.

eircomtribunal

The court case is between ComReg and Eircom – and nobody else.

Esat/BT certainly does not do the Oisin Fanning or Michael Leary style things, and they counted their financial losses with their LLU project, but they are in a very good position with regards to Unbundling (if and when the process is in a proper state and perhaps the 39c half unbundling gives them some ideas), having gear in a lot of exchanges already. They take part in the ComReg consultations and input their considerable experience from being the incumbent in the UK.

Their new main competitor no doubt is Smart, and they'll have to do something about it.
P.

dahamsta

eircomtribunal wrote:

The court case is between ComReg and Eircom – and nobody else.

Amicus curiae?