Eircom says wholesale rates are too low

dahamsta

ENN

The same paper says that the managing director of Eircom retail, Cathal Magee, has warned that current policies and regulations in the telecoms industry are inhibiting investment, product innovation and development. Speaking to the Small Firm's Association, Magee said the telecoms regulator and the government's "fixation with price control" was threatening to kill off investment in infrastructure. He claimed the rates paid by other operators to use Eircom's core networks -- rates that are set by the regulator -- are too low, saying they are the lowest rates in Europe.

I formally nominate Cathal for an EircomTribunal.com eIdiot Award. Muppet.

adam

MDR

And colocation charges are the highest in Europe...

fabien

Did you read the last paragraph of the article in the Indo? It gets better...

"The Eircom retail chief also warned that the development of broadband in Ireland will require a massive investment of €1bn-€8bn in infrastructure and the government must focus on where gaps exist in infrastructure and avoid duplication."

MY TRADUCTION:
"The Eircon CARTEL chief also warned that the development of broadband in Ireland will require a massive BRIBE of €1bn-€8bn FROM TAXPAYERS in BROWN ENVELOPPES and the government MAFIA must focus on areas where we can suck the MOST CASH out of common people and AVOID COMPETITION by equally dividing the market between Eshat and Eircon."

Full text here

Canadian

Which famous general said...

'The Best Defence is a Good Offence'

Seems like thats the strategy the hogs at the trough have come up with to deal with the slowly turning tide.

Including negotiations, appeals, lawsuits, OTDR taking YEARS to figure out what is actually happening (i give her too much credit) it will be YEARS before Ireland has affordable internet.

Even money Ireland doesn't have 1% Broadband penetration by 2006 (the year I must leave by).

===================
Why vote on Nice?
This is Africa, Not Europe

LoBo

Amusing how the boards.ie frontpage cut the subject line:


Otherwise, I've nothing constructive for this thread.

gandalf

Oh I agree the rates are too low for a company that has no innovation and is top heavy by around 3000 employees.

I personally think the government should reprocess the network as Eircom are unable to deliver the products that Irish Business & Consumers require at the rates that our Competitors in Europe and beyond enjoy.

Gandalf.

crawler

VENTING ENORMOUS AMOUNTS OF ANGER!!!!

crawler

This makes my blood boil!

I am giong to make it my mission to go through the eircom RIO piece by piece and let everyone know exactly what everything costs on the wholesale market...lots of work but this has pushed me over the edge...Arrrgghhhh!!!!!!!

Give me 'til Christmas...it will be interesting reading.

crawler

I will also learn how to spell!

MDR

I personally think the government should reprocess the network as Eircom are unable to deliver the products that Irish Business & Consumers require at the rates that our Competitors in Europe and beyond enjoy.

The government can't repossess Eircom's network, because Tony O'Reilly & Co owns it. The people bought it from the government, and Tony bought it from them, he owns it ...

Now the government could take away their license to operator (for one of a million reasons), but then you would end up with a dorment network and no-one would have a phone.

Its a tough situation, how do you encourage Eircom to reform ?
the carrot can only work so much, and you have to be sure you want to use the stick. Afterall any reform Eircom introduces is going to incounter heavy opposition from the unions who own 15% of the company ...

Its a much more complex situation than it seems (as is the case with most things). Take for instance the re-nationalisation of RailTrack in the UK, that was bought about by westminister buying back all the share it originally sold to the public. If the Government wanted to do the same with Eircom, it would have to convince Tony O'Reilly or some of the other shareholds to sell their stake (at a loss 'cos the market is deflated at the moment) and thats gonna be tough. More-over does the government have the readies at the minute to start such a buyback of shares ?

crawler

Spot on MDR - it is very complex

Competition is the key - the irony of it all is that higher prices encourage more competition , this is why we have seen an increase in ESB prices recently - to encourage competition! VERY Irish!

Longer term market forces come into play and prices level out - our problem is that we are a million miles behind the rest of the planet.....it all hurts.

Canadian

In the 1970's during the so called 'oil crisis', American oil companies were ordered by the Government of the US to divert all tankers to US ports even tho they were destined for other countries (like Canada).

As all petro companies in Canada were american based, the Canadian consumer was going to be screwed by this event.

In response, the Government of Canada Nationalized an Oil Company (a purchase in legislation) and scared the crap out of the rest of the companies. It worked - Canada got its fair share of oil.


When a 'public good' is being squandered to the detriment of a countries citizens, a government is only doing it's duty by intervening. THIS IS THE REASON FOR GOVERNMENT in the first place.

Imagine if ESB raised prices by 500%. Would we be saying 'Yeah, well it's complicated, like.'

No -- there would be rioting in the streets.

======================
I can't vote for or against Nice.

crawler

Hmmm....

You are working on the following assumptions

1) The government is 100% honest and only acts in the public good
2) The Government has no vested intererst in profit maximisation of certain organisations
3) they dont all drink in the same pubs!

Sadly this is Oireland!

Very Cynical I know and over hyping the issue , but the underlying points are valid!

Canadian

Any chance in 50 years some historians will refer to the early 21st century in ireland as the 'Information Famine' which drove a lot of wealth out of the country?

Only our grandchildren will know for sure.

======================
"Information Famine"
You heard it here first.

MDR

Consipiracies theories end up sounding like ...
"They do it because they are all out to get me", or "They do it because they are all corrupt" . I will always consider the conspiracy theories last, and the facts first.

MDR

An 'Information Famine' is what the Taliban Imposed, Ireland has merely a weak telecoms sector, keep things in proporation peeps.

kamobe

10,000 march through Paris against privatisation

Why oh why didn't we do the same

For those who are interested the article is here.

sceptre

Originally posted by MDR
Consipiracies theories end up sounding like ...
"They do it because they are all out to get me", or "They do it because they are all corrupt" . I will always consider the conspiracy theories last, and the facts first.

Very fair point Ray.

Personally I agree strongly with your statement that nothing should be attributed to malice if it can be explained by stupidity.

(of course, I've a low opinion of the cop-on level of people in general)

I don't think they're out to get me or anyone else. I do believe that we've a government and a telecoms regulator who are so short sighted that they can't see the barren future they may be creating.

Canadian

I think it's a pretty sad commentary that we're actually arguing about whether the government is STUPID or the government is CORRUPT.

Perhaps they should make it easy on the voters next time by actually creating parties of each denomination.

Who Knows, maybe the Munster Retards and the Lenster Blockheads could form a coalition government to keep out the Irish Sleeze Party.


=================
Nice Vote for Sale
to Highest Bidder

Delphi91

Originally posted by MDR
...Its a tough situation, how do you encourage Eircom to reform ? ...

Nobody has asked (or even answered) this question, to the best of my knowledge, so I'll pose it:

Why are Eircom the ONLY company that can install telephone lines????

Surely some competition in that area would put the skids under them?

If Company X were also allowed to install phone lines and exchanges, then we might see some competition in terms of wholesale rates, etc. At the moment, Eircom run the whole show, so they can complain and stall and basically act the plonker, and there's nobody to stand up to them.

Mike

dahamsta

Why are Eircom the ONLY company that can install telephone lines????

They're not. Anyone can set up their own network tomorrow, build exchanges, and start selling lines. The big OLO's already do in a way, for enterprise customers. The problem is building up a head of steam to make it available to the masses, and the problem with getting there is that you still have to route calls to Eircom customers, and that means dealing with Eircom.

As many of us have said many, many times, the only change that will have a real effect in Ireland is to force Eircom Plc to divest itself of it's retail divisions. It's the only way to promote genuine competition in a marketplace so inbred as ours. Other countries can get away with it because the EU has paid attention to them, Ireland is stuck now. It won't happen though, of course.

adam

MDR

(of course, I've a low opinion of the cop-on level of people in general)

I don't think they're out to get me or anyone else. I do believe that we've a government and a telecoms regulator who are so short sighted that they can't see the barren future they may be creating.

I share your low opinion of peoples level of cop on, I can be farely Fr Dougal Maguire-esque myself at times.

The problem with successive Irish governments is tend to be more reactive than pro-active. Once they get elected they do a few survey's, find out what people want and every so often give it to them. This is more or less what FF have been doing for the last few years.

They only really start to listen to groups like ours, when things start to go very wrong ....

spongebob

As Ray Said

They only really start to listen to groups like ours, when things start to go very wrong ....

...... which , of course, is what has happened.

Eircom Privatisation and unravelling thereof cost the public €2-3 Billion in the pocket.

McCreevery 'tries' to give that back via the SSIA scheme, theres an election due non?

Meanwhile O'Reilly and New York chums buy the local loop monopoly to sweat the asset. Monopolies are prone to sweating.

Mary O'Rourke gives O'Reilly and chums a break by filing down the regulators already very worn teeth, the ODTR is reduced to masticating rather than enforcing.

Estonia passes us by .....flying.

Finally the penny drops at government level!

Now there is a willingness to listen to those who have said consistently that the overall telecommunications situation in Ireland is a shambles.

M

pork99

They only really start to listen to groups like ours, when things start to go very wrong ....

by which time its too late and countries with better infrastructure, lower costs and more tech literate workforces have "eaten our lunch"*

* "competitors are going to eat our lunch?" the current incumbents would probably respond by putting armed guards on restaurants (like the boss in the dilbert cartoon)

MDR

Eircom Privatisation and unravelling thereof cost the public €2-3 Billion in the pocket.

McCreevery 'tries' to give that back via the SSIA scheme, theres an election due non?

That cash went into the National Pension Fund, the SSIA was designed to bring inflation down, money for it is drawn from the yearily budget. It started long enough before the election, for me no the be suspious.

Mary O'Rourke gives O'Reilly and chums a break by filing down the regulators already very worn teeth, the ODTR is reduced to masticating rather than enforcing.

O'Rouke was afraid of her life of going anywhere near Eircom, she knew the privatisation was a disaster. The fact is O'Rourke set the share price a little bit too high and the teleco's market was highly inflated and subsequentily colapsed. She was giving Eircom a wide birth, as she had been badily stung by the whole affair and was worried about her seat at the next election (funny that).

But any which way, it the Government listens no matter what the timeframe or reason, the responsiblity is on us to speak our minds, regardless of how we feel about those who are listening.

spongebob

As you said.

That cash went into the National Pension Fund, the SSIA was designed to bring inflation down, money for it is drawn from the yearily budget. It started long enough before the election, for me no the be suspious.

Ahhhh Ray, lets look at the cock up rather than the conspiracy.

My opinion is that the SSIA was a 2000 solution that was only launced in 2001, by December 2001 it had outlived its purpose which was to take the edge off an inflation rate that had hit 7% in 2000 as the economy was into cyclic downturn by then.

McCreevey could have abolished it in Budget December 2001 and didn't. That was because he wanted to give the FF mob a COUNTERARGUMENT on the doorstep in the next election on the lines of.

Punter: Feck off I lost me money on Eircom, I'm voting blueshirt
FF Yahoo: Didn't we give it back ta ya in the SSIA , thats why we brought it in in the fursht place sure. Them shaggin uuu-ROPE-eens wouldnt let us give it schtraight back ta ya like we meant ta.

The typical shareholder is down €1500 euros cash and can make that back (in the govt 25%) once they save €6000 thru SSIA. At €250 a month that will take 2 years. The median entrant came in during Dec 2001.

I think Mc Creevey can 'announce' that the SSIA will end on the 31/03/2003 by which time most punters WILL have made back what they lost in the Eircom Debacle. Linking the 2 of them together is not infeasible to the Maurice Hickeys who dominate Irish politics.

The government, having subsidised the punter for his losses, can easily turn around and hit O'Reilly and company with a 'windfall tax' as the UK government hit the monopoly utilities (especially water) in the late 1990's and will have full public support in so doing....starting January 2004 to be fair.

It will serve adequate warning on O'Reilly and co that the Irish Polity will not tolerate grossly arrogant monopolies. Eircom will not be 'unmentionable' in public as the SSIA/Eircom Losses linkage will have been made.

Biddy O'Rourke was a victim of the law of Karma, I have no sympathy for her.

I also speak as one who made money on my Eircom shares!

M