ComReg Quarterly Report is out - All is well in broadbandland?

damien

http://www.comreg.ie/whats_new/default.asp?ctype=5&nid=102046

If people have time can they analyse this and tear it to shreds.

damien

152,300 BB subscribers in June 2005

134,000 BB subscribers in Dec 2004 according to OECD

Means 18,300 added in 6 months, means 36,000 per year.

To reach the eircom goal of 500,000 will take 9.65 years.
To each Dempseys goal of 600,000 will take 13 years.

2015 before Dempsey's 600,000 figure is met we'll say. (Being a bit generous)

bealtine

damien.m wrote:

152,300 BB subscribers in June 2005

2015 before Dempsey's 600,000 figure is met we'll say. (Being a bit generous)

Yep we are really flying high there...

It clearly shows we have the highest line rental in europe and then makes up
some pathetic excuses to try and hide/explain it

The .eu average for line rental is €15.

Sponge Bob

I shall read the detailed definitive Comwreck analysis before I wade thru it.

damien

** Highest Line Rental in the EU **
The document shows Ireland has the highest line rental in the EU. Almost 10 euros per month more than the EU Average. - Page 15 of document: ComReg0543.pdf

** LLU is a failure in Ireland **
ComReg0543.pdf Page 16 Figure 2.6.1
LLU % is decreasing since it was first introduced. LLU - Local Loop Unbundling. LLU is the best way to bring about true broadband penetration.

damien

This is weird. The ComReg Quarterly Report for June 2005 is based on data from March 2005?

I'm trying to get clarification as to how many BB subscribers there are for June 2005.

If it is 152,300 for March 2005 and not June 2005 it means 73,000 per year takeup. Which is still another 6 years before we reach Dempsey's unambitious target. 4 years later than expected.

Sponge Bob

damien.m wrote:

** Highest Line Rental in the EU **

Highest Line Rental in the Known Universe !

GreeBo

Sponge Bob wrote:

Highest Line Rental in the Known Universe !

Be cheaper to rent one from the poxy Zoo.

viking

damien.m wrote:

This is weird. The ComReg Quarterly Report for June 2005 is based on data from March 2005?

I'm trying to get clarification as to how many BB subscribers there are for June 2005.

Isn't this report for Q1, Jan - End of March '05

"The data in this review is based on returns from authorised operators for the period starting 1 January to 31 March 2005."

Q2 hasn't ended yet -> 30 June '05.

Mr_Man

Broadband A service or connection allowing a considerable amount of information
to be conveyed, such as television pictures. Generally defined as a
bandwidth > 2Mbit/s Broadband Integrated Services Digital Network
(B-ISDN). The capability to integrate any type of communications
signals (voice, data, image or multimedia) and carry them over a
single broadband channel of 150-mbps and above, 4k (B-ISDN)
regardless of their content.


So how many people in Ireland have broadband according to this definition?
M.

jwt

Mr_Man wrote:

Generally defined as a
bandwidth > 2Mbit/s [/b] Broadband Integrated Services Digital Network
(B-ISDN). The capability to integrate any type of communications
signals (voice, data, image or multimedia) and carry them over a
single broadband channel of 150-mbps and above, 4k (B-ISDN)
regardless of their content.

Unlike ireland where broadband is considered to be anything above 64k, not always on, not flat rate, and not available!

Comreg have always been careful not to define broadband in absolute terms. Mainly, in fairness, that it has always recognised that it is a moving goalpost but also because they have to generate reports which are read in EU land where broadband is actually set as a goal as opposed to a hurdle.


John

Sponge Bob

jwt wrote:

Comreg have always been careful not to define broadband in absolute terms.

However in comparative terms I note that they chose to compare DSL BB packages across the EU 15 , these are all 1mbit down packages . We come in 10 out of 14 in that chart because Comreg decided not to include Greece which is more expensive than us for 1mbit so we are 10th out of 15 then. 1Mbit is their marker product.

Most of the 10 new entrants have a 1mbit package cheaper than Ireland which probably means that we are 20th out of 25 in terms of DSL costs .

Comreg have forsaken the opportunity to do a comparative BB+Line Rental table because we would be top .

The new yellowpack package 1mbit could take us into the cheaper half of that table if Comreg decided to use it ...as they will... so its probably time to check the others to confirm they are always on AND cheaper than Ireland and not yellowpack time limited offerings .

Lies , damn lies and statistics.

damien

Sponge Bob wrote:

Comreg have forsaken the opportunity to do a comparative BB+Line Rental table because we would be top .

Do one and we'll get it attention.

Sponge Bob

I might except for one thing. In the DSL 1Mbit price comparison (page 21 out of 37) where Comreg have adjusted for $PPP (priced in a FOREIGN currency albeit one used in OECD comparisons) we see where we are 10th highest of 14 on that basis. Constant Euro price basing would be clearer to all, n'est pas ???? , especially when comparing European Price Baskets !

The absolute amount quoted in there appears to be c.$22/$23 or about ...ish... €19.99 .

COULD it be that Comreg are showing the yellowpack product as the pricing base despite its not being available in the reference period (Jan - Mar 2005) or even in the current quarter (Apr - Jun 2005) . It will not actually be available until the Jul - Sep quarter to be reported on in late December 2005 .

I make it that the cheapest entry level 1024 product in q1 is UTV 512k at €29.99 or about $35 or so but thats without the PPP factor (Purchasing Power Parity) . In q2 to be reported in in September that product became 1024 thanks to Smart. .

That would all tend to make us look worse.

If added to the line rental that would make us look abysmal

The big question is whether the EU price comparisons, shown in DOLLARS by Comreg , is using the correct reference entry level 1024 (or 512k ) product for the reference period ??? ..

De Rebel

From ireland.com (Subscription Required)

Jamie's take on the Comreg Quarterly Report

Eircom loses another 25,000 customers in first quarter

Jamie Smyth Technology Reporter

Eircom lost a further 25,000 telephone customers in the first quarter as competition continued to increase in the market.

The number of households choosing an alternative telephone supplier for call services rose to 350,000 by the end of March 2005, up from 325,000 at the start of 2005. This represents a major increase since the first quarter of 2004 when just 250,000 people used alternative firms.

There was also a continued increase in the number of households that choose to take their line rental from alternative providers as well as call services. By the end of the first quarter some 110,000 households had chosen to take the line rental from rivals.

The figures, which are included in the latest quarterly report published by the Commission for Communications Regulation (ComReg), mean that one in five consumers now use an alternative phone supplier to Eircom.

The report also highlights that Eircom's line rental prices are higher that the equivalent rental prices in all 25 EU states. Eircom's standard line rental charge is €24.18 per month. This is the only fee above €20 in the EU. However, the Republic is ranked from 5th to 7th cheapest for national and international call costs.

The ComReg report shows about 152,000 people had subscribed to broadband by the end of the first quarter. It also shows that Ireland is ranked 10th out of 15 EU states in terms of the cost of broadband over Eircom's network.

The number of people using dial-up internet services increased by 4 per cent in the first quarter of 2005 to 211,000 compared to the prior quarter. The report also highlighted that 46.2 per cent of homes now have access to a computer while 38.2 per cent of people use the internet.

Overall, the revenue generated from telecoms and internet services in the year to the end of March 2005 was €4.1 billion. This represents an increase of 1 per cent on the previous quarter and 9 per cent since June 2004.

Meanwhile, the average spend on mobile services in the residential sector is now estimated to be €53 per month, says the report.

Spending is highest among 15-34 year olds, whose average spend exceeds €57 per month. Irish mobile users also spend more than any other Europeans on data services such as text messages.

© The Irish Times

De Rebel

The ComReg report contains this piece of nonsense on page 15, as a justification for Irelands No.1 showing in the line rental league.

Figure 2.5.1 shows Ireland being the most expensive Member State for the residential monthly line rental charge. This is due in part to Ireland’s population spread and the geography of the country. Whereas in other countries population density can reduce cost, Ireland’s population is more dispersed increasing the cost of provision of access.

This is complete nonsense and needs to be treated as such.

Take a few examples:

Population Density (inhabitants per square Km, extrapolated from the 2005 CIA World Factbook)
Ireland	57
USA	31
Sweden	20 (Line rental shown by ComReg to be approx half that of Ireland)
Finland	15 (Line rental shown by ComReg to be approx half that of Ireland)
Norway	14

The latter 3 countries deal with much more severe geographical/environmental obstacles then eircom every have to overcome. And while eircom does have low density in the North and West, it has the huge economy of having over 40% of the population living in a single city, a cost saving opportunity afforded to few other telcos around the world.

This argument is complete nonsense. The cause of huge line rental is twofold (1) massive inefficiencies in eircom which have never been tackled (2) profiteering by eircom to pay for the capital taken out of the company in 2003.

That Comreg allows eircom to get away with this is wrong. That Comreg seeks to justify it with spurious arguments is totally unacceptable.

And in a more general vein, Comreg wasting time effort and energy producing this stuff on a quarterly basis is an appalling was of tax payers’ money. It would be more than adequate if this were produced say once every 2 or 3 years, and use the freed up resources to focus on what should be Comreg's primary concern: regulating the market for the benefit of the consumer.

vinnyfitz

I also noticed that, De Rebel, and was surprised that Comreg chose to justify it. They could have said precisely nothing and left the data and the very dramatic chart speak for itself.

Maybe they are subtly drawing readers attention to this nonsense. I wonder could Ireland Offline encourage ComReg to look into this argument in a little more detail since they seem to consider it important. I'm sure the ESRI or the OECD could help them assess the true extent of population dispersal in Ireland vis-a-vis the other countries.

Of course Eircom's argument is that they reinvest this huge income in network infrastructure. Where is this investment reported on? Do we know how much they spent on what parts of the network in 2004 for example? Is this investment subject to independent review by Comreg or anyone else?

De Rebel

vinnyfitz wrote:

Of course Eircom's argument is that they reinvest this huge income in network infrastructure. Where is this investment reported on? Do we know how much they spent on what parts of the network in 2004 for example? Is this investment subject to independent review by Comreg or anyone else?

David McRedmond frequently throws out figures such as €200m in this context, as in "...this year we are investing €200m in our network....."

While I don't have the figures to hand, the truth, based on eircom's SEC disclosure, is that Capital Expenditure is less than Depreciation, not a good position for what is essentially a Technology Infrastructure provider. In simple terms, this says that the network is rotting. And in eircom's case Capital Expenditure is a catchall that has a lot dubious content, including capitalisation of large amounts of labour expense, eircom's single greatest inefficiency.

The money generated by high line rental is going down the tubes thanks to operational inefficiencies (many of which are labour related) and plugging the hole left when the balance sheet was raided to pay the bond holders.

There is certainly nothing of the order of BT's [UK] £10bn 21CN program.

vinnyfitz wrote:

Maybe they are subtly drawing readers attention to this nonsense

Your making at least one assumption there that could very easily be challenged.

Cork

I can't seem to access this report - has anybody any link to this report.

I find it amazing COMREG highlighting the line rental costs.

Hopefully they'll bear this in mind before sanctioning price increases.

jwt

report

and backing data here


John

eircomtribunal

Cork wrote:

I find it amazing COMREG highlighting the line rental costs.

It should be the norm for the regulator to highlight our exceptional high line rental costs, our extremely poor bb penetration etc. It is the function of the regulator to inform the public and decision makers about what's going on. It is the function of the regulator to raise the red flags when necessary.

ComReg has no intention to highlight those "bad" charts. But there are some things ComReg can't hide any longer. Like our dismal broadband penetration, or our high line rental, because they cannot always simply just not print those charts from the EC data source.
(Mind you, they do simply not publish unfavourable data, whenever they think they can come away with it: Example: No mention of our 60% bb coverage shame. Other example: ComReg still and again publish misleading telephone cost comparisons: They print a lot of selective positive sectoral cost comparisons, but refuse to print the one and only important EC data about our average business and residential phone bills, for the simple reason that in both categories Ireland is on 4th dearest place of the EU-25)
Consistently ComReg tries to argue away the significance of the "bad" charts:
Ireland on second last place with broadband penetration – ComReg have specifically commissioned a chart that backdates the broadband development of all countries in the bizarre attempt to bring Ireland into a better position.(Last seen in ComReg's "Forward looking.." document).

In this Quarterly Report ComReg has decided to include Hungary, Czech Rep and Slovakia in the chart.(page 18) Why? Any reason for this besides the desperate attempt to make Ireland's shameful column not look so awfully lonely with Greece's?
And the text:
"Figure 2.10.2 represents the latest figures from the OECD which show that Ireland’s broadband penetration rate is one of the lowest in Europe. However this figure has improved over the past two years. The number of broadband subscribers per 100 inhabitants was 0.3 and 0.8 for 2002 and 2003 respectively. Member states with high broadband penetration rates such as the Netherlands, Denmark and Belgium had high take up of broadband services on cable and other platforms."
Excuses, excuses and more improper excuses for regulatory failure.

With regards to the excuse for our high line rental, ComReg say it is "partly due to the pop density.." – what would be the other part then? And what about the state of the line infrastructure? etc.

On the bb pricing ComReg is also very quick at hand to take the edge of any bad showing:"It should be noted that in March eircom increased the download speed on its entry-level broadband offering to 1Mb, which may lead to a more competitive position in this basket in the next Quarterly
update."
Does ComReg not realise that similar things happen in the comparator countries?
Has ComReg no shame to praise private company Eircom for something that is long overdue and not praiseworthy therefore?

The biased data presentation of our regulator is a shameful waste of time and money. It is dishonest, misleading on purpose and partly to blame for the misinformed policies of the gov.

P

eircomtribunal

I don't remember this being posted so far. On the RTE website there's an article on the Quarterly ComReg data, which is not especially impressive, but has a link to a John Doherty interview, which is worth listening to (just so that we don't forget what we are dealing with - especially depressing the last part of the interview, where we are again told how the "trajectory is in the right direction" and that we should not look to the supply side of broadband, but to demand stimulation – all told by the head of a body that bloody well knows that 40% of pop cannot get bb currently).

From the RTE article:

Today's report also shows that in the first quarter of 2005, narrowband internet subscribers increased by 3% while broadband subscribers rose by 16% quarter on quarter. The report says that this indicates that while consumers are continuing to take up narrowband services, more consumers are migrating to broadband platforms to access the internet.

ComReg says that DSL continues to be the fastest growing retail broadband platform. But despite the increase in the uptake of broadband services, Ireland's broadband penetration rate is still one of the lowest in Europe. The report also showed that Ireland had the highest monthly line rental figure of 19 EU countries.

P.

SkepticOne

It is inevitable that questions of demand will be asked.

Take up requires two things:
1. That the service is availabe.
2. That people for whom it is available decide to go for it.

I think the problem is this: that what was once an argument for increased availability has now become a goal in its own right.

Low take-up figures were always an embarrasment for the government. In the past it was easy to explain that there cannot be take-up without availability. However, take-up was never a goal originally.

From a consumer point of view, availability (and supply in general) is the only goal that makes any sense. If you can't get broadband for whatever reason, it doesn't matter to you as a consumer if broadband is really popular for those that can get it.

Ireland at the bottom of league tables was originally simply a way of arguing for greater supply. It becomes less and less persuasive in terms of increasing broadband as more and more of the country get broadband, but the real danger is that it becomes something to be solved in its own right.

bealtine

SkepticOne wrote:

From a consumer point of view, availability (and supply in general) is the only goal that makes any sense. If you can't get broadband for whatever reason, it doesn't matter to you as a consumer if broadband is really popular for those that can get it.

What I'd like to know is where did this mystical 80% coverage figure come from?

Is this a chicken and egg situation?

SkepticOne

bealtine wrote:

What I'd like to know is where did this mystical 80% coverage figure come from?

Is this a chicken and egg situation?

Are you talking about the McRedmond 80% "coverage" figure?

bealtine

SkepticOne wrote:

Are you talking about the McRedmond 80% "coverage" figure?

Yes that one and the Comreg one (and strangely enough the OECD one).

SkepticOne

bealtine wrote:

Yes that one and the Comreg one (and strangely enough the OECD one).

It is the percentage of lines that are attached to broadband enabled exchanges regardless of whether or not those lines are fit to carry broadband. Obviously, it makes no difference to the consumer whether the exchange is upgraded if the line can't carry broadband.

Even though it is meaningless from the consumer point of view, it is important from an Eircom point of view. By upgrading an exchange, Eircom have monopolised the area for broadband. It is very unlikely that a competing company will come in to get the 20% or so people left behind. Consequently Eircom have the luxury of taking their time in dealing with requests for broadband from these people. If they wish, they can simply say that the line is unfit for broadband and leave it at that.

It makes sense from Eircom's point of view to repeat this figure over and over for PR reasons as it adds to the idea that demand is the key problem, not supply.

Even at the more accurate figure of 60%, it is very hard to argue that only by increasing supply will we catch up with other countries.

The way to deal with this, imo, is to focus on meeting the needs of consumers first and foremost. If the only strategy is to try and mitigate Eircom's PR then the game is already lost. They can and will simply step up their PR efforts - something that is very cheap and easy for Eircom.

Sponge Bob

SkepticOne wrote:

It is the percentage of lines that are attached to broadband enabled exchanges .

It counts all the lines into huge central dublin office as enabled even though only one is needed to carry bb .

Therefore of the Eircom Rollout it May be Said

it does not cover 80% of people
it does not cover 80% of premises
it covers over 50% of homes in ireland
it covers 60% of the population at most

The 80% figure, provided by McRedmond to the media and then deliberatly provided by Comreg to the OECD so thatComreg could quote it back in international comparisons is known in these parts as the BIG LIE

I wonder if the OECD realises that the Internet in Ireland is Legally deemed to be Functional (according to Comreg) at 0k ....because 2.4k was too much in this day and age .

SkepticOne

Well the word is out. The Big Lie is exposed.

ednwireland

yep and nearly 2 years after my exchange was enabled i still can't get broadband.