Comreg 2nd best Regulator in Europe !

Jpaulik

Sweet Jesus H Christ. Shouldn't that be 2nd rate ?

http://www.enn.ie/frontpage/news-9413723.html

ComReg is Europe's second-best regulator
Friday, May 28 2004

Ireland has the second-best telecoms regulator in Europe, according to a study released by the European Competitive Telecommunications Association, a trade body.

The ECTA looked at about 66 criteria and ranked 10 of Europe's telecoms regulators in terms of effectiveness. The UK's Ofcom came out on top with a score of 379, followed by Ireland's ComReg, which had a score of 317. National regulators in Denmark, Italy, Sweden and the Netherlands followed, with scores of 309, 291, 276 and 270 respectively. Spain, France, Belgium and Germany rounded out the list, in that order.

The ECTA scorecard divided its 66 criteria into five main sections: general powers of the regulator, effectiveness of the dispute settlement body, application of access regulations, availability of key access products, and implementation of each member state's national regulatory framework (NRF).

ECTA went on to merge its scorecard results with data on national investment in telecoms, concluding that the level of investment in telecommunications in a given country is strongly affected by the effectiveness of the regulatory regime. In fact, ECTA said that the relationship between the scorecard results and investment figures provided by the OECD shows that as much as 90 percent of the variation between countries in levels of investment can be explained by the quality of the regulatory environment.

"Member states that want to attract the most investment in order for their consumers and businesses to benefit from competition and innovation need to ensure that their regulatory regimes meet EU best practice," commented Roger Wilson, managing director of ECTA, which has lobbied for a single telecoms regime for Europe. "A survey of our members has shown that they pay keen attention to comparative regulatory effectiveness when selecting in which countries they prefer to invest."

Unfortunately, Ireland is the exception to the rule, ECTA noted. "Ireland has an investment level significantly below the trend line," the report said, "i.e. investment is significantly lower than would be expected given its performance in the scorecard report."

In the UK, which has the top-ranked regulator, investment in telecoms as a percentage of GDP is 0.99, while UK investment in telecoms as a percent of GFCF (Gross Fixed Capital Formation) is 5.82. Both figures lead all nations surveyed.

Meanwhile, in number-three-ranked Denmark the figures are 0.79 and 3.77 respectively, and in sixth-ranked the Netherlands, the percentages are 0.70 and 3.2 respectively -- figures that correlate with ECTA's conclusions that good regulation means high investment.

In Ireland, however, investment in telecoms as a percentage of GDP is 0.43 and Irish investment in telecoms as a percent of GFCF is 2.03 percent. In fact, Irish telecoms investment figures beat only Germany and Belgium, the bottom dwellers of ECTA's regulatory scorecard.

Ripwave

Originally posted by Jpaulik
The ECTA scorecard divided its 66 criteria into five main sections: general powers of the regulator, effectiveness of the dispute settlement body, application of access regulations, availability of key access products, and implementation of each member state's national regulatory framework (NRF).

general powers of the regulator: Has powers, but won't use them.
effectiveness of the dispute settlement body: The Four Courts.
application of access regulations: Comreg apply them, and then turn a blind eye when they are ignored.
availability of key access products: Eircom says they're not "key", so they don't count.
implementation of each member state's national regulatory framework: What regulatory framework?

Is eircom a member of ECTA?

shinzon

Surely this should be moved to the comedy board

Sheesh

Shin

Mr_Man

the article highlighted the investment problem in Ireland, and how even with the 'second best' regulator in Europe the investment was under what would have been expected.

M.

eircomtribunal

Originally posted by Ripwave
Is eircom a member of ECTA?

No. Members are the likes of Alto, Vartec, Global Crossing, Wannado,
Tesco

All members are mentioned on http://www.ectaportal.com

Mentioning the discrepancy between ComReg's high rank on their scoreboard and the abnormally poor result for the county (low investment in Telecommunications in Ireland), is an important stance they took when publishing their survey. It begs the question, why this is the case.

P.

watty

Perhaps investment in Germany is low because they already have a good systtem

Perhaps the regulator there doesn't need to do much so seems ineffective.


Seems to me to look at investment you need a yardstick of what needs done.

To look at Regulator effectivness you need to look at what the public and exprerts think telecos are doing wrong and if regulator was addressing this.


On these basis I'd say we come much lower on investment and nearly zero on regulator effectiveness.

We still after XXX years have no nationawide effective local loop competition.

We have people useing mobiles for voice AND internet rather than get fixed line.

We use outdated ADSL technology which does not allow ISDN (a superior cheaper technology to analog for voice / fax / data).

There is still a requirement for NON-Internet data. ISDN is best solution to share one copper wire for voice / analog data / fax / ISDN Data / isdn FAX and up to 12 numbers to route call on PC or €200 8 line "PABX".

dahamsta

Originally posted by watty
Perhaps investment in Germany is low because they already have a good systtem

Perhaps the regulator there doesn't need to do much so seems ineffective.

I'm afraid that's not the case anyway. The market abuses of Deutsche Telekom are well documented.

adam

watty

I'd rather be abused by Deutsche Telekom than Eircom!

ISDN as Standard vs not even on Digital Exchanges < 1Km

VDSL/xdsl on ISDN the norm vs not even ADSL most exchnages

Porn dialier destination 35c vs €3.50

etc etc.

How much is German line rental compared with RIP IRELAND €26 p.m. analog €38 ISDN ?

govinda

It seems DT charge €15.66 p.m. for an analogue line, €23.60 p.m. for a basic ISDN line (other offers available, but these are the basic services)
www.t-com.de

I have to agree with Watty, I'd rather be abused by DT too!

eircomtribunal

Deutsche Telecom offer 1, 2 and 3 Mb dsl. (no more 512)
You need your normal fixed line rental at €15.66 (or €23.60 for ISDN).
Then you need dsl line rental at €16.99 (1Mb), €19.99 (2Mb) or €24.99 (3Mb).
Then you need a dsl provider package. For this you can go anywhere, and there are very cheap volume and/or time-capped ones available for a few € per month.
Deutsche Telecom offers a range of them, too. Its uncapped ones will cost you €29.95 for 1 Mb and €59.95 for 2 Mb. [can't see the price for an uncapped Deutsche Telecom 3 Mb package]

So to compare with Eircom: (all incl VAT)

1 Mb Eircom, (capped!) including line rental will cost you €131per month
1 Mb Deutsche Telecom, (uncapped) incl. line rental will cost you €63.20 per month.

2 Mb Eircom, (capped ?), incl line rental will cost you €228.67 per month.
2 Mb Deutsche Telecom, uncapped, incl line rental will cost you €95.60.

While I would agree with most observers that Irish dsl pricing is no longer as big an issue as availability, it should still be noted that expressions by Dermot and others about Ireland now having the lowest or most competitive dsl pricing in Europe are simply not factual.
P.

query

You also need to factor in other issues, for example DT do not offer a bitstream offer and there's no local calls CPS, so LLU is much more prevalent

eircomtribunal

Originally posted by query
DT do not offer [...] bitstream

In Germany DT does not sell bitstream to other Internet Service Providers, rather the customer pays DT directly for the dsl part – which in a way is a more honest reflection of the underlying facts.

So Eircom’s bitstream offer can be directly compared with Germanys customer dsl line offer:

Eircom’s wholesale bitstream pricing
Port - 2048/256 kb/s 24:1 €115
compares to DT’s 2MB pricing of €19.99

Port - 1024/256 kb/s 24:1 €59.60
compares to DT’s 1Mb pricing of €16.99

Port - 512/128 kb/s RA 24:1 €27
Port - 512/128 kb/s RA 48:1 €20.10
No longer offered in Germany

Would be interesting to know whether DT have a similar charge as Eircom to Internet Service Providers who want to do business with them, and a similar nice justification for the 8k charge: quote from Eircom price list:
“1.2 Service Establishment Charge Service
Price (EUR) Service Establishment per AS EUR 8035
The Service Establishment Charge is levied once for each Access Seeker to recover eircom’s costs in providing authorisation and training to Access Seeker staff in Bitstream IT systems to support order processing.”

P.