Eircom want price hike

Keeks

Found This in todays examiner. Basically Eircom chief Pat glavin want an increase in line rentals.

timod

Yeah, he was on 5-7 live yesterday also - he said that if the ODTR allow Eircom to increase the line rental, competition will increase...

They want to increase it by over £100 a year!

I'd pay it - if they'd give me a huge bunch of free calls with it....

Tim

SkepticOne

This is just Eircom jumping on a report by IBEC which advocates the removal of caps on certain types of Eircom services such as leased lines for businesses. Of course, Eircom is in favour of removal of caps because that gives them the ability to raise more money out of existing infrastructure without the need to invest.

Pat Galvin is a bit contradictory on this. From an Irish Times article

However, when asked if a removal of price caps might result in customers having to pay higher prices, Mr Galvin said it would be "unwise to assume that prices would go up", as the telecoms market was much more competitive today.

And then in the Examiner:

Senior eircom executive Pat Galvin claimed a large increase in the cost of line rentals will be required if the company is to develop the local access network to service households.

Looks to me like Eircom just wanting more money out of the hard pressed consumer. Eircom needs to be more carefull about who they choose to speak for them. This is too obvious.

See earlier thread on the subject here.

rymus

Originally posted by timod
Yeah, he was on 5-7 live yesterday also - he said that if the ODTR allow Eircom to increase the line rental, competition will increase...

They want to increase it by over £100 a year!

I'd pay it - if they'd give me a huge bunch of free calls with it....

Tim

yeah, and unmetered 56k access. otherwise they can stuff their price hike

MS

Forgive me if im wrong.... but did Eircon not already make a price hike when the calls went from 12p for 15 minutes (48p per hour....not sure about tax etc. on that) to 1p for 1 minute 2p for 2 minutes blah blah blah (60p an hour) ? Also i can understand your grief about dead connections. When i started using the www at first i averaged 500+ calls every 2 months to the www and didnt know about it until i demanded an itemised bill and then seen all the connections that only lasted 5 to 15 seconds(due to multiplexing). Many Modems later and a load of fighting with Eircon i finally got a direct line to the Exchange which totally cured the problem. And a nice letter from Eircom with the heading 'Without Prejudice'. Im not saying you have the same problem but its worth checking out. Noise on you line must mean that you have a really OLD line and they can pick up 2 FM or even an electric fence which you modem cannot decipher and shuts down.



MS

PS I used to have a really slow connection form Athlone to Dublin and discovered that some Crows holding on to the telephone lines in Kinnegad were causeing it by holding on to tightly LOL!
:rolleyes:

GoneShootin

where my gun ?

TrickyKid

That Ireland had unmetered local call access for years (ie charge for connection and nothing else), and yet we let it slide away with barely a whimper in the (I think) late 80s.

If only we could get that back now, at least we'd have made some progress.

Fergus

He said across the country a lot of manufacturing jobs are under threat or are being lost and the more telecommunications intensive projects with longer term growth potential were locating in Dublin where the broadband capacity exists.

The other day the public accounts committee were told half the broadband capacity in the county is lying idle. The gov has poured x00 million into broadband deployment throughout the country. Capacity doesn't only exist in Dublin. Delays with LLU and over-priced bitstream mean the OLOs are not in a position to connect subscribers to it.

Senior eircom executive Pat Galvin claimed a large increase in the cost of line rentals will be required if the company is to develop the local access network to service households.

So radically simplifying the billing system to charge a flat-rate is going to require investment? If course not. Or what is this 'local access network' that households currently don't have?

But Mr Galvin warned there would not be an investment bonanza even if the cap was lifted

Presumably because eircom would hike their wholesale rates even more to try and choke the competition, or that they only plan to milk the existing infrastructure for all they can get.

Eircom cannot expect a sympathetic hearing when they bemoan commercial viability: they consistently fail to convince the ODTR - which has access to their internal costs - that they are charging fair prices. And of course, other telcos in the UK miraculously seem to survive with lower charges and real competiton.

What's more important to this country: General affordable internet communications for all businesses and individuals, or endeavouring to keep inefficient telcos in profit?

dahamsta

yeah, and unmetered 56k access. otherwise they can stuff their price hike

Ah, but who's to say that this isn't the end-game rymus? Look at the recent NTL and Chorus price rises: Better customer service levels were a big part of the Regulators Decision Notice, but that was going to happen anyway, because the public were up in arms about it. The nub from the Regulator's perspective was pushing rollouts of digital TV and bringing forward the expiry dates on those geographical monopoly licences.

So it's not beyond the bounds of belief that *if* the Regulator decides to consider the lifting of price caps on line rentals and suchlike, retail and so wholesale 1892 and 1893 rollouts will be a requirements bundled with that. In fact it's quite possible that this has all been discussed already behind closed doors, and the announcement by Galvin is just the first step in this process.

If I'm right, and of course I'm just projecting so I could be utterly wrong, the real concern I have is that this senseless politicking and obscure methodology continues. Sure, it's advancing the situation, but it's doing that too slowly - there's no need for it, especially in light of the illogical and often contradictory commentary coming out of Eircom. In the past year, they've made so many blunders they usually end up looking like fools. I'm sure Fergus and Hudson would be able to point out many such blunders.

Eircom needs to get over this hump of wanting to be seen as a clever company. They're a clever bunch behind it all, and we recognise that, even in light of the gross incompetence often demonstrated by them (particularly with regard to their share rice). But we do recognise it, so I wish they'd just grow up and get the finger out. It's going to happen, and the longer they put it off, the more harm they're doing, not just to us, but to themselves. It's time to accept "defeat", and just spin it so it looks like a victory.

adam

SkepticOne

Originally posted by Fergus


But Mr Galvin warned there would not be an investment bonanza even if the cap was lifted

Presumably because eircom would hike their wholesale rates even more to try and choke the competition, or that they only plan to milk the existing infrastructure for all they can get.

I believe Eircom wish to take fuller advantage of their local loop monopoly. They recognise that it is highly unlikely that competition will ever exist in local loop provision and so a massive price hike will not result loss of market share. If they can make money in this way, a lot of the pressure is off them to invest in new revenue streams.

The IBEC TIF report was fairly wide ranging and covered issues like the enactment of the Telecommunications Bill and 3G. Removing caps on telecommunications products is mentioned but not specifically applied to residential line rental. Where removal of price caps is mentioned, it is with a view of attracting investment throught competition. Leased lines would be an example of the type of services where this might work. Companies may well be tired of five year quoted lead times and might be willing to pay more in the short term in the hope that more efficient competing companies would enter the market.

From the residential consumer's point of view there is no competition on local loop provision. Rather, customers can choose services from competing companies over Eircom's local loop. It is vital, therfore, that line rental and wholesale call charges be tightly controlled to encourage this competition.

If the IBEC TIF are suggesting that raising line rental on Eircom's local loop and other monopoly services will encourage other companies to come in and set up competing residental local loops, then I think they are being a bit naive given the current investment climate. It would be worth getting clarification on this.

Alternatively, t might be that some deal is being hammered out in the smoke filled rooms of the ODTR. If that is the case, fair enough, but I don't see why this should not be done in the open.

Red Moose

Just got back from the US - I really loved those Eircom adverts around the arrivals corridor: "Welcome to the home of the most advanced communications in the world" (and of course, an advert for Westlife).

****ing great to be back.......................

billy the squid

WPresumably because eircom would hike their wholesale rates even more to try and choke the competition, or that they only plan to milk the existing infrastructure for all they can get.

Well when one company has the network its damn sure that the competition will get fleeced out of existance

guess the likes of the odtr forget what RTE did to Century with their network

would raise the question should the communications infrestructure be nationalised and let the government deal with the telecum companies equaly