Communications (Regulation) Bill, 2002

Yoda

The Communications (Regulation) Bill, 2002, has been passed by the Dáil and will be sent to the Seanad. Discussion went on from from 15:00 to 18:15. Dangger, Vinnyfitz, and I were present. I offered to write this report.

O'Rourke, Mary (FF, Minister for Public Enterprise) introduced the bill. Jim Higgins (Fine Gael) and Brian O'Shea (Labour) were present to propose amendments. The Minister had also proposed amendments. Deputy Higgins complained that there was hardly any time to discuss this bill, which had originally been scheduled for a day's debate. The Minister noted that most of the key players (the telcos) didn't know until a couple of days ago that the bill was to be debated today, and that most of them didn't think that the present government would pass a telecoms bill. (I suppose this is why so many rumours are flying about in the press today.)

There was not, as expected, time to debate all the amendments proposed by the Deputies or the Minister. Of these, it seems there are two of them which are of most interest to Ireland Offline. The first was Amendment 7, proposed by Deputy Higgins, intending to add text about "promoting affordable internet access". (One isn't allowed to take notes in the Gallery so I don't have the exact text.) The Minister proposed adding instead text in a different part of the bill about "encouraging access to the internet at reasonable cost to users". (I wrote that on the back of a business card as the Minister said it.) This has to do with the brief of the new regulatory commission.

Discussion got stalled on Amendment 8, proposed by Deputy Higgins. This is the one about flat-rate. I will return to this in my next post to this thread, as I want to give it due attention and it is complicated.

Time ran out at 18:15 with only about two-thirds of the proposed amendments considered. The Ceann-Chomhairle proposed (as is normal, it seems) to accept all the remaining amendments proposed by the Minister (which was approved) and then asked if the bill were approved for forwarding to the Seanad. Which it was.

So, everyone, we have a Communications (Regulation) Bill. Patience please as I prepare the part of the report you want to hear.

Yoda

Amendment 7, proposed by Deputy Higgins, read:

Section 12 A(8) The Commission may require an operator to provide other operators with bitstream services and flat-rate interconnection services and set prices for these services. The Commission may exercise this power at its own initiative, or at the request of an operator.

In the discussion, Deputy Higgins and Deputy O'Shea both spoke quite well to this question, and I think it is important here to note that this is a definite reflection on the effectiveness of the IrelandOFFLine campaign. It is clear that the TDs understood the issues. It seems fair to say that the Minister did too.

Deputy Higgins compared the costs of 24-hour access in the UK, France, the US, Iran, and Russia were all well under €40 a month. Ireland was €790 a month for the same service, he said. (Do remember I am quoting all of this from memory.) He spoke rather eloquently about the costs this really causes our country, the real disadvantage it puts us at.

Deputy O'Shea took another approach. He pointed out that the education of children used to be book- and library-based, and now the library is the Web. Of course, if Irish families can't afford to use the internet.... You get the picture. Of interest was his highlighting of the plight of disabled people -- and their carers, who are often just as tied to the home. These people in particular might benefit from fixed-rate 24-hour access. But not for €790 a month.

Both TDs made a strong case, and it was disheartening to watch the Minister endeavour to avoid the issue. I am not sure she actually uttered the words "fixed-rate" at any stage. The proposed amendment was not accepted, as you may have guessed. And here's the really peculiar point.

The Minister said she didn't want to put this amendment into the bill now because "in six to eight months" Ireland will be assimilating into Irish law the European Regulatory Framework, which, she said, will give us everything we wanted in the amendment to the bill and more.

Now it does occur to me to suggest that if the Regulatory Framework is in fact a superset of the proposal for amending the bill, why would it be inappropriate to adopt a few elements of that subset immediately, and just allow the legislation to be superceded in six to eight months? It also sounded about as close to a promise as a government official will let anyone hear.

Obviously, I did not have the opportunity to suggest this to the Minister. Indeed, Deputy Higgins had not heard about the European Regulatory Framework and was unable to respond. Indeed during the discussion at this point, since the Minister did not have the Framework documents to hand, it was suggested that discussion move on until they could be brought.

At this point the three of us went out into the hall to talk for a couple of minutes. It may be that the Framework documents were brought, but I think rather that this didn't happen, as there was so little time in any case.

So, it appears to me that IrelandOFFLine must now investigate the European Regulatory Framework and add it to our arsenal. I found it at http://europa.eu.int/information_society/topics/telecoms/regulatory/index_en.htm

Once again I think IrelandOFFLine should consider this to be a good day. We now have The Communications (Regulation) Bill, 2002, and we have found out about more European legislation which may help our cause. And our cause and our arguments are now a part of the record of Dáil Éireann.

Yoda

A representative from Eircom was in the gallery with us watching the proceedings. It seemed clear that Eircom really didn't expect the bill to pass. I reflected that there was an awful lot of energy put into trying to give the regulator a lot of power against the intransigent monopoly. And I thought, what a waste, it could be so simple. So I turned to the Eircom representative, and smiled, and said "Please give us fixed-rate access. Please."

"You're from IrelandOFFLine, are you?" the Eircom representative said.

"Yes. And I got my phone bill today. Please give us fixed-rate internet access."

"How much was it?"

"A great deal more than it would have been if I were living elsewhere. Please give us fixed-rate internet access." I said this in a spirit of cheerful expectation, which I think surprised the representative from Eircom. But after all it would be simple for them just to embrace the inevitable. Wise, too.

And with that I went out of the gallery to have a pint with Dangger in Buswell's.

pete

I've finally persuaded video capture to work on my PC again. Video quality isn't fantastic (the combination of a long coax cable and two different VCR's long play hasn't helped). For the sake of speed I'm just encoding Amendments 7 & 8 for starters. I'll probably do the last couple of minutes too - any requests for other sections?

SkepticOne

Thanks, Yoda, for that excellent report.

SkepticOne

Originally posted by pete
I've finally persuaded video capture to work on my PC again. Video quality isn't fantastic (the combination of a long coax cable and two different VCR's long play hasn't helped). For the sake of speed I'm just encoding Amendments 7 & 8 for starters. I'll probably do the last couple of minutes too - any requests for other sections?

pete, is it possible to extract just the audio from that? I think we should have the video for the record too, but the audio would be great for the moment. A couple of screenshots would be nice , of course.

pete

Originally posted by SkepticOne
pete, is it possible to extract just the audio from that? I think we should have the video for the record too, but the audio would be great for the moment. A couple of screenshots would be nice , of course.

Oooh shouldn't be a problem... this is all seriously rushed by the way, so quality ain't gonna be fantastic.

infomat

Contragulations on a job well done ... it will be interesting to see how Eircom will respond.

aidan_dunne

Excellent report. At least it made things a bit clearer for me to understand (I hate trying to understand all that government jargon!).

Thanks to the efforts of Ireland Offline, at least more and more TD's are finally finding out about the great rip-off in this country and having a bit of political support can't hurt.

I know having the flat-rate amendment dropped is a real disappointment but we can look at it in a positive way, too. If the EU legislation is what is going to determine how and when we finally do get flat-rate, we can take some sort of comfort in the fact that the EU sure as hell won't put up with any bull$hit from Eircom. I'm not too sure what our government could have done to try and force Eircom to introduce FRIACO but I bet the EU and Mr. Likkanen won't take any crap from Eircom. If they tell Eircom to give us flat-rate, they sure as hell better because I'm sure the EU will come down much harder on Eircom than our own government ever would have. Also, there won't be any "vested interests" or "lobbying" (nudge nudge, wink wink!) within the EU. You're right, Yoda, Eircom would be better off to embrace the inevitable before the $hit hits the fan with the EU.

Eircom, you may think you've gotten off lightly today but the future looks bleak for you unless you start playing ball.

Also, Yoda, I think it's a good thing that Eircom representatives now know about Ireland Offline and seem to be acknowledging the group. Remember, for a long time Eircom looked on IOFFL as just a small bunch of "disgruntled nerds" and probably doubted they could actually have any effect against them. In fact, for a long time nobody within Eircom even know about IOFFL. You can be sure that they know all about IOFFL now and are probably feeling a little less comfortable knowing that IOFFL can actually do something against Eircom.

Jpaulik

Nice one Yoda. Deputy Higgins should be congratulated on his efforts alone. If the rest of FG has his attitude they'd do well in the election.

pete

15 Minutes of todays Comms Bill action

Streaming (28k)

Download (about 2.5mb)

edit: amendment 8 starts 11minutes 28 seconds in

Dustaz

fair play Yoda. As someon else said, its great to have these arcane politico debates translated for the common oik like me:)

SkepticOne

Thanks to pete for doing this recording. I understand that the Government are accepting bids from companies for streaming video and the Dial and here's somebody who's done it out of his own pocket.

dahamsta

Thank you Yoda, and again thanks to pete.

adam

pete

awww shucks you guys


i'm attempting to FTP another clip up, this time of the last few minutes.

when it's done the urls will be

Streaming (28k)

Download (about 650k)

Moriarty

Big thanks go to Yoda, Vinnyfitz & Dangger for representing IO so well Was an intresting day; more to the point.. it showed the effect IO are having. TDs - among many others - are being educated (which can be a notoriously hard thing to do ) about the entire situation.

Im going to fire off a phone call to Deputy Higgins thanking him for the effort he put in. It seems like he really did his homework wrt this bill; the amendments that ive seen here were all well thought out and would have added much to the bill.

Good work all involved

sikes

thats yoda and everyone else. its been great to here from you in plain english!!

i think ioffl have to move into different territory ie europe. This legislation that they hope to pass i am reading it at the mom. so far no sign of friaco. (i am sure its in there)

Well don Mr. Higgins. (your party now has my vote)

pete

Transcript of yesterdays proceedings is now online

http://www.irlgov.ie/debates-02/18april/sect4.htm#com

edit: well some of it is.... i guess they're still working on it


oh and it looks like someone's being quoted:

Mr. O'Shea:
...
In the United Kingdom being on-line all the time can cost some €40 per month on a fixed charge. In this country a person wishing to be on-line all the time would need to pay in the region of €750. Obviously, this is intolerable in terms of the equal access of European citizens to be on-line all the time. This differential of 49 to one in the cost of being on-line all the time affects not only carers and persons with a disability, but also has to be an enormous factor in discouraging those who have yet to avail of Internet access. It contributes hugely to something that should be avoided at all costs, that is, the development of a division in society between the information rich and the information poor.

Yoda

Transcript of yesterdays proceedings is now online in three sections:

http://www.irlgov.ie/debates-02/18april/sect4.htm#com

http://www.irlgov.ie/debates-02/18april/sect5.htm

http://www.irlgov.ie/debates-02/18april/sect6.htm

spongebob

Who told him to mention this one?

Iranians have more rights than Irish People it seems, shock horror

"Deputy Higgins compared the costs of 24-hour access, in the UK, France, the US, Iran, and Russia were all were under €40 a month"

as Yoda said.

timod

love the remark from Alan Dukes at the end of the debate:

Mr. Dukes: It should not be made that easy for the Minister.

Meh

Originally posted by sikes
Well don Mr. Higgins. (your party now has my vote)

And all this with a broken foot, too. Impressive...
Thanks for the report, Yoda -- interesting reading.

viking

Originally posted by Meh
And all this with a broken foot, too. Impressive...
Thanks for the report, Yoda -- interesting reading.

Thats Jim Mitchell, not Jim Higgins...

MDR

Well done to all concerned, its a positive step foward. Thanks especially for streaming the video footage ...