Leap slams ODTR

ando

http://www.electricnews.net/news.html?code=8577612

sceptre

Ardagh is also seeking an inquiry by the Competition Authority into the actions of the ODTR in allowing Eircom and Chorus to "hoard" the licences that they already have, without actually making wireless broadband widely available. "Eircom and Chorus have six broadband wireless licences," Ardagh claimed in a statement, "But have failed to roll-out a useful service. As a consequence, market competition and broadband are not being developed as originally promised."

Can't disagree with that - allowing Eircom and Chorus to retain licenses they look like having no intention of using is nuts. All in a day's work at the ODTR.

aidan_dunne

Neither can I. Sounds like petty mindedness on the part of Eircom and Chorus:

"Well, we'll get these licenses and never use them, just to prevent other companies from getting them. Ha ha ha!"

It's like buying a prime city centre parking space when you have no intention of using it. You just want it so your next-door neighbour who you hate can't get it.

If those licenses aren't going to be used by Eircom and Chorus, they should be pulled from them straight away and re-offered to companies who actually will use them.

Anyway, when these licenses were awarded there should have been a clause stating that the companies had to use them and provide a service on them within, say, three years, otherwise it would be withdrawn.

Another example of the great "Irish" way of doing things. Jesus! :rolleyes:

yellum

If they don't use their spectrum it should be taken off them and given to people that will use it.

Heres an idea:

The ODTR gives spectrum space to community and non-profit groups who will allow commercial companies in to set up the network with the condition that a certain percentage of a community will get cheap access on startup and anyone that meets the criteria and in an area and that can get a signal signs up for a price thats judged to be low by the community group.

In turn the commercial company can save on its setup costs, and use this money to market themselves to commercial entities where it can make most of its profits.

If the deal sours or the commercial company folds the spectrum again falls back to the community group.

I also thought that the licences covered too large an area. The old formus one had the whole of Ireland. It should be smaller areas like a city or town. So if a company doesn't want to cover for example Mallow, someone else can get the licence for that.

Kenshin

Rory Ardagh, a director of Leap Broadband has called on the Minister for Communications and Natural Resources, to reverse the ODTR's order.

WTF? How can someone be a minister of two things that arent even remotely related to each other?
Someone please fix this government

yellum

The spectrum is a resource.

Kenshin

Originally posted by yellum
The spectrum is a resource.

It's not very natural tho, is it? Well I guess electromagnetic waves occur in nature, but that's not what comes to mind when I think about 'natural resources'...

sceptre

Originally posted by Lord of Terror

WTF? How can someone be a minister of two things that arent even remotely related to each other?
Someone please fix this government

OT but
Departments have been united under ministers for a long time. I wouldn't think that Arts have much in common with the Gaeltacht and the Islands, for example. They combine various departments that are seen to have a smaller footprint (for lack of a better word). It might be useful if they have an actual association though.

Kenshin

I see...
It doesn't seem to be working out too well though... looks like they took an expert in the field of organic fertilizers, and put him in charge of communications

edit: typo

aidan_dunne

I like that, Lord of Terror. The Minister is going to have to listen to a whole load of $hit from Eircom, wade through a whole load of it when they see how f**ked up telecoms in this country is and try to sort out a lot of it in order to get things up to scratch in this country so having someone who's used to dealing with $hit should be an advantage then, shouldn't it?

Fallschirmjager

Curious to see what will happen here...will the ODTR make them do something..anything with it..

LoBo

Originally posted by aidan_dunne
I like that, Lord of Terror. The Minister is going to have to listen to a whole load of $hit from Eircom, wade through a whole load of it when they see how f**ked up telecoms in this country is and try to sort out a lot of it in order to get things up to scratch in this country so having someone who's used to dealing with $hit should be an advantage then, shouldn't it?

haha

Still waiting on a response from leap re: my enquiry about availability in dun laoghaire area... here's hoping... supporting any broadband solution but €ircon's might be the right way to get some actual competition in this area.....

Colm

spongebob

below

spongebob

I sympathise with Leap, really I do.

As far as I know both Chorus and Eircom have licences in the Narrow and Wide bands.

Licences, 4 for Chorus and Eircom not 6 from what I see here

In the Narrow Band, both are in use.

Chorus supply their phone service over WLL or Wireless Local Loop, a wireless ISDN grade service, this is in Limerick/Cork and maybe in the Midlands.

Eircom use this spectrum in some rural areas to do the same, mainly in the West such as the Dingle peninsula. It is disingenous to say they should hand it back to a company that only operates in Dublin such as Leap.

As regards broadband,

Chorus have a few customers, at most in low three figures for their 'Powernet' service....in Limerick at least.

Eircom have not supplied any product that I know of.

ESAT have not supplied any product that I know of.

The interesting bit is this.

Formus, a company for which the Ardaghs worked at one point, used to have a Broadband licence , see Here and fought over a narrowband licence with the ODTR (or was that Broadnet).

It would be more dignified for Rory to ask for the licence back rather than ask that it be taken away from the incumbents of whom at least one makes some use of it.

Still, good luck lads but lets try not to shut down any Broadband service by losing it its spectrum!

M

rardagh

Hi Muck,

Leap has not looked for the current spectrum to be removed from the current owner.

That current owner, and I will talk to eircom and chorus, as being effectively under a single owner, does have six WLL licenses.

As you described Two Narrowband and Two Broadband licenses and One Rurtel License (eircom 2.3GHz) and One (mongrelised MMDS license - Powernet Chorus) = Six licenses.

We would like to gain access to the 5.8 GHz spectrum on a licensed basis. This would not be contrary to 802.11a which operates 5.3 and would not be contrary to allowing others users benefit from the band (for say point-to-point links). We believe within each cell area there could be 'many' operators competing with each other using PMP systems, and the licenses would allow the effective commercial rollout of higher bandwidth, more geographically extensive services.

In summary Leap would like to be able to compete with other enfranchised operators on a level playing pitch, grow our company, and compete for your business.

Best, Rory

spongebob

I didn't find the extra rural narrow and mmds broad while rootin thru the ODTR website.

Is it fair to say that

Chorus have 3

Broad (not used)
Broad over MMDS (used)
Narrow (used)

€ircon have 3

Broad (not used)
Narrow (not used)
Extra Rural Narrow (used)


I think nobody in here wants incumbents to get and sit on licences to block others from market entry.

I also think that McCreevy wants too much $£€€ for spectrum and that this is causing a dilemma for the ODTR, look at the 3G competition.

There were legal challenges during the last round of non 3G wirless spectrum allocations as we know.

Therefore the ODTR is being ultra cautious and the market is ploughing ahead rather than wait for the ODTR to get its 'finger' out.

Could comeone correct me if I am wrong on the usage for Chorus and Eircom above.


M

fixer

Leap is whinging that someone else has a monopoly and NOT THEM and dammit, that's just not fair to them. They want to be
able to control a market and keep out competition until they achieve this fictitious concept of economies of scale. As much of the teleco world in the US is proving, bigger isn't always better.

802.11a does use 5.8Ghz in the high band. Not in Europe yet, due to Hiperlan conflicts, but I would not be surprised to see Europe follow the FCC and make 5.8Ghz also unlicensed.

Nice trick of LEAP though, to be try and get exclusive rights to a band where the gear is available in the US for unlicensed use, meaning the cost of equipment is much less as it's mass produced.

mayhem#

Originally posted by rardagh

In summary Leap would like to be able to compete with other enfranchised operators on a level playing pitch, grow our company, and compete for your business.

Best, Rory

Sounds fair....

thegills

Some good points all round and I'd agree with most.
Would Leap really be interested in rolling out to the regions if they were in possession of any of these 6 licenses. I think you will find that both eircom and Chorus use their licenses in some instances. eircom need them to reach customers not accessible by cable. They are abused somewhat thought as I heard of a base station in Tralee that has no capacity available and was built just to fulfil license requirements.

spongebob

It seems that Leap were onto something alright......

In the business section of the Irish Times today there is a detailed Article By Karlin Lillington, based on Documents obtained under a freedom of information request which shows inter alia that:

(My Summation not hers)

1. The wireless broadband market does not exist (see previous articles here) because licencees are sitting on licences and deliberately not using them.

These are Chorus Esat and 'Rattus Hibernicus' as it happens.

2. The ODTR is the cause of the problem because of a cartel agreement created in 1999 by the ODTR itself involving the lads above +Formus.

3. This Cartel cannot be broken up until 2004...the ODTR will not licence any new wireless operators until then because it has agreed not to.

4. The Cartel includes the non-existent Formus but STILL cannot be broken up, nor could the Formus licence be bought by Telenor when they went under a while back........although they tried to.

5. A 'working group' is looking into whether the operators are 'complying with their licences' while there is no FWA Broadband service in the country
(see way above on the Chorus MMDS Kludge).

IE The Department Of Communications has a 'working group' looking into something that DOES NOT EXIST over 3 years later.

How much 'working' is required to figure that one out Dermot?

Another E-Tub of Europe ®©™ special

M

De Rebel

Originally posted by Lord of Terror

WTF? How can someone be a minister of two things that arent even remotely related to each other?
Someone please fix this government

To give that mess its correct title its the Department of Communications, Marine and Natural Resources. (aka Telegraphs, Trawlers and Trees, all of which begin with the letter "T" so thers the link for you.

More seriously, it arose because there were a lot of very senior very exhausted mandarins in the Department of Public Enterprise, who after 5 years of the Schoolmarm, couldn't cope with another 5 years of debacles. So the clever one(s) hatched a plan. They stuck Minnie Brennan with all the crap (CIE, Aer Lingus, Traffic Jams etc, etc) and carved out a nice little niche for themselves buying lots of new toys and gizmos and going to conferences and regulating stuff and wanted it as the Dept of Communications. Naturall Resources was worth keeping, it doesn't cause too much trouble, most of the rubbish (Tara etc) has been sorted out, and there is the possibility of loads of kuedos and lolly if they ever strike oil. So that was neat enough. Then all that ballyhoo blew up about "de marine" and to get rid of the pong of fish and to satisfied the entire fishing community they added two words to the title. A clime down, but thats the mandarins at their pragmatic best.

A shambles, but what they hell. They keep their jobs for anouther 5 years, lots of new toys to play with, and never a chance of being held accountable for anything. Ever. By anyone. At all. At all.

Such is the life of a mandarin in the Irish Civil (!) Service (!).

So now you know.

sceptre

De Rebel, I'd accuse you of being a true cynic, but what you've said is probably close enough to the truth.

De Rebel

Originally posted by sceptre
De Rebel, I'd accuse you of being a true cynic, but what you've said is probably close enough to the truth.

i'd settle for being called a truthful cynic.

wouldn't it be interesting if, in the spirit of Scott and Martin, someone from "de department" would drop in here and refute one word of what i said

tuxy

Originally posted by De Rebel


i'd settle for being called a truthful cynic.

wouldn't it be interesting if, in the spirit of Scott and Martin, someone from "de department" would drop in here and refute one word of what i said

no of course they wont do that they are all above us :rolleyes:

vinnyfitz

I'm not a civil servant in Communications or any other Department but this thread does not do them justice.
They won't answer us because the system (which you choose to or to not vote on) says the Minister is responsible.

In fact, in my experience, officials in the communications sector of government are much more up front than most others. I guess that is partly 'cos they get to see what we are discussing....

Either way they are trying to sort a messy, complex, legalistic, new, controversial, opinion laden part of public policy where there is more than one answer to almost every problem (we see that in our own debates) - and then they also have to persuade politicians who are facing a similar but different mix of pressures.

At the end of the day information is king. The more information we post here the more information is there for anyone who chooses to read it. We know they are reading it.
Post the facts. That is the most powerful thing we can do.

De Rebel

Originally posted by vinnyfitz
I'm not a civil servant in Communications or any other Department but this thread does not do them justice.
They won't answer us because the system (which you choose to or to not vote on) says the Minister is responsible.

Precisely what is it that doesn't do them justice ?

dahamsta

I honestly don't see your point vinnyfitz. Ok, Dr Rebel's post is a wee bit flatulent, he's projecting a little, but imho the vast majority of this thread /is/ factual, and serves as a perfect demonstration of the corruption/ignorance of the People In Charge. I dunno, perhaps you were just trying to get it back on track, but I think we all need to vent every now and then. And I think that if the middle managers and lower echelon staff in these organisations are intelligent enough to read this forum, they're intelligent enough to differentiate between fact and conspiracy theory.

adam

spongebob

.....to point out that the net result of the activities and otherwise of the dept of comms and the odtr, taken together and separately, was to facilitate the creation of a cartel that sits on a slab of useful bandwidth in order to do nothing with it.

They are to be allowed to continue doing nothing with it for another year or more.