Would Oftel take any of our 3.....?

Mr_Man

Looks like Ireland has at least one decent regulator, and we're about to lose him to the UK. I wonder would Oftel be interested in any of the three wise 'men' at the head of Comreg?

M.

vinnyfitz

I doubt it, but on the other hand don't be surprised if you hear Isolde's name is in the pot for the post of chair of the Competition Authority.

damien

I would think that would definitely be a possibility. She was a bit of a golden child in the CA before she moved to ComReg, was she not?

Sponge Bob

our lot are only fit to make B Movies

Tom Young

For sure. Other option is Prof Frances Ruane from Trintiy.

Tom Young

It the OFT - Office Of Fair Trading by the way.

Mr_Man

I guess I am showing my age, Oftel has now become Ofcom, it is hard to keep up with all these acronyms

M.

Sponge Bob

Tom Young wrote:

For sure. Other option is Prof Frances Ruane from Trintiy.

Trinity 'gave us' Prof Martin O Donohue, thats enuff from that shower for one lifetime thanks .

The King of the Tinkers would be what I'd have in mind as a Commissioner.

eircomtribunal

Sponge Bob wrote:

our lot are only fit to make B Movies

We never heard of any release of Etain's cinematographic projects, she never progressed beyond that poster:

P.

Solair

Personally, I think that ComReg gets a lot of stick for no good reason. They've relatively little power and no big stick to beat eircom and other anti-compeditive players with.

ComReg should have the power to implement massive financial penalties should a company fail to comply and there shouldn't be a situation where everytime ComReg does something eircom takes legal action against them. It doesn't bode well for their ability to regulate the market.

I'd like to see ComReg be able to fine eircom (as it's the only player who does this) on a per day basis for any anti-compeditive hold ups.

I would also like to see ComReg take some serious technical advice from the eircom switch vendors. For example. I cannot for one second understand how eircom hare having so much difficulty with number portability. Smart customers shouldn't be having any problems keeping their exisiting eircom numbers. The switching equipment eircom has is not bad and *CAN* support all of these functions without any major problems. They're just holding things up as usual. If Meteor, O2 and Vodafone can do it, there's no reason that eircom can't. Ericsson AXE and Alcatel E10 switches are quite flexible and are handing number portability in plenty of other networks.

DonegalMan

Solair wrote:

Personally, I think that ComReg gets a lot of stick for no good reason. They've relatively little power and no big stick to beat eircom and other anti-compeditive players with.

So why don't they ask for the powers they need?

eircomtribunal

Solair wrote:

Personally, I think that ComReg gets a lot of stick for no good reason. They've relatively little power and no big stick to beat eircom and other anti-compeditive players with.

Having little power is one thing (– and your remarks about that are valid, and the DCMNR and gov in general carry the blame; albeit both Dermot Ahern and Noel Dempsey have asked the regulator to tell the DCMNR about the need for more powers), but ComReg's sustained and deliberate misinformation of the public and of our political decision makers about Ireland's failing development of Internet and Broadband cannot be explained by lack of enforcement powers. When the regulator should have long raised red flags it rose-tinted the situation we were getting into with small, medium and big lies.

Nor does lack of enforcement powers justify ComReg's awful handling of the line rental increase to the highest in Europe.

When the regulator's task would have been to emulate the missing cable competition (as other regulators have successfully done) this regulator genuinely thought that conceding big profits to Eircom would make them act responsible – what fools.

P.

AndrewMc

Solair wrote:

Personally, I think that ComReg gets a lot of stick for no good reason. They've relatively little power and no big stick to beat eircom and other anti-compeditive players with.

The biggest problem I have with ComReg (apart from having inadequate powers) is that they seem totally unwilling to highlight the problems. Every report talks glowingly about our progress (or at least tries to conceal the bad news) when everybody knows we're years behind the rest of Europe and not catching up.

zuma

AndrewMc wrote:

The biggest problem I have with ComReg (apart from having inadequate powers) is that they seem totally unwilling to highlight the problems. Every report talks glowingly about our progress (or at least tries to conceal the bad news) when everybody knows we're years behind the rest of Europe and not catching up.

True.

And Tony O'Reily says copper is too regulated?!?!?!