Eircom can't do it all on its own (Sunday Times)

DonegalMan

David McRedmond in Sunday Times Article
The Sunday Times - Business
October 03, 2004

Personal View: Eircom can’t do it all on its own

THERE has been much comment recently on the need for greater investment in broadband in Ireland to ensure as many people as possible have access to this technology.
Inevitably, the debate has focused on Eircom and the expectation that it is our sole responsibility to deliver on the needs of Ireland Inc.

This might have been a legitimate expectation while Eircom was a semi- state monopoly but it is no longer the case.

Today Eircom is a commercial company, a listed plc and one of a number of operators (albeit the largest one) in a fully liberalised and highly competitive market.

Eircom’s obligations are to its customers and, in this context, we have clearly stated our objective: to get broadband to as many people as possible, as quickly as possible and as cheaply as possible.

While Eircom is no longer a state monopoly, the reality is that we are the only telephone company in Ireland investing in this type of network across the country.

Most of the other players in the market selling broadband are doing it on the back of Eircom’s investment.

Our agenda is, and has to be, a commercial one. Two years ago there was no mass market for the service; today 70% of the country is covered. Twelve months ago there were only 5,000 broadband customers in Ireland; today there are more than 75,000 and we will achieve our target of 100,000 connections by the end of this year.

Eircom is driving the demand for the technology through a combination of intense marketing and a sharp reduction in price.

Today the price of broadband in Ireland is near the EU average which is impressive when you consider that we operate in one of the highest cost economies in Europe.

There has been some media focus recently on the inability of some customers to obtain the service. The nature of the technology is such that the quality of the telephone line and its distance from the local exchange determine the ability to deliver broadband. This is the same whether you live in Dublin, London or Paris, or any other city, town or rural area in Europe.

The view that Eircom is underinvesting is seriously misleading. The company has consistently invested at a rate above the average of its European peers. The challenge is to drive our broadband penetration level, which stands at nearly 5%. The issue we should focus on now is how we bring the technology to those parts of Ireland where it is currently commercially not viable for an operator to deliver the service.

This, in my view, is where the government could direct funds, in partnership with Eircom, to complete the job of rolling out the service to everybody in Ireland.

That is what is happening in Northern Ireland (between the government and the incumbent telephone company) and it can happen here.

Government can also help by designating Eircom as an essential service, so that every new housing estate or business park has access built in (which Eircom will invest in) for telecoms infrastructure.

For Eircom’s part, we will continue to drive the momentum around broadband and continue to invest in the telecommuni- cations infrastructure.
While our commitment is to our customers, Eircom can’t be solely responsible for 100% availability of the technology. By working with government we can help to make it a reality.

David McRedmond
commercial director, Eircom

lucernarian

Government can also help by designating Eircom as an essential service, so that every new housing estate or business park has access built in (which Eircom will invest in) for telecoms infrastructure.

For F**k's sake, there are certain new housing estates in Drogheda in which it took over a year to get a basic phone line! Many new housing estates cannot get ADSL when neighbours in 20-year-old houses can.

I don't see where all this extra investment is going and I notice he failed to mention the amount of houses being built here. Obviously far more investment is needed here than in other countries given that we are building houses at 6 times the rate of many parts of Europe.

Victor

Today Eircom is a commercial company, a listed plc and one of a number of operators (albeit the largest one) in a fully liberalised and highly competitive market.

Eh..... not sure about the competitive bit.

Most of the other players in the market selling broadband are doing it on the back of Eircom’s investment.

For which eircom is being paid.

Eircom is driving the demand for the technology through a combination of intense marketing and a sharp reduction in price.

Providing the service is needed to fulfill this demand with supply.

This, in my view, is where the government could direct funds, in partnership with Eircom, to complete the job of rolling out the service to everybody in Ireland.

Ah, yes. Corporate welfare.

Government can also help by designating Eircom as an essential service, so that every new housing estate or business park has access built in (which Eircom will invest in) for telecoms infrastructure.

Actually if I were ComReg, I'd do the opposite and do what the Energy Regulator did when the took the new gas distribution (gas local loop) franchises away from Bord Gáis and tendered them.

Ripwave

McRedmond in Sunday Times Article wrote:

The company has consistently invested at a rate above the average of its European peers.

Eircom has consistently charged it's customers a line rental that is far above the average paid by their European peers. Eircom's customers have paid dearly for this "investment".

lucernarian

If Eircom is consistently touting above average investment in the phone network how come they never point out exactly why this is so and where exactly this is spent and why simultaneously it takes up to a year for many people to get a simple phone line?

damien

I'd like to take this opportunity to thank David McRedmond for starting this very public debate about Eircoms investment in it's network and how committed it is to their customers. IrelandOffline will be making a formal response to this and we will also encourage all our members to also send in their thoughts to the Sunday Times.

Wertz

Eircom is driving the demand for the technology through a combination of intense marketing and a sharp reduction in price.

:rolleyes:
The only reason there was ever a sharp drop in price was the entry into the market of Esat/Utv. I think we all can remember how much Eircon was charging for it's ADSL before they got the wake up call they needed.

Twelve months ago there were only 5,000 broadband customers in Ireland; today there are more than 75,000

Are they saying here that that's due to their "marketing strategy"?
Putting some guy in a giant mouse costume and playing a few Queen records didn't conjure subscribers out of the ether: the demand was always there for BB, just the price was restrictive, at least to the home user.
It was only through the opening up of the market that they were forced to compete.
We still pay through the nose for our service, that's assuming we're lucky enough to get it. Line rental + service costs = Highest BB costs in the EU fullstop.


This article (is it an open letter to the new minister for communications?) has more spin than Bush's election campaign...

lucernarian

originally posted by damien.m
we will also encourage all our members to also send in their thoughts to the Sunday Times.

I've already tried to do this but the email address is a uk-based one. Will the letter be shown in the Irish version or what?

damien

There's an email for the Irish section too. I'll post it here when I find it. If people are writing in to the Times maybe they should post a copy of their email in this thread.

Victor

To_be_confirmed wrote:

I've already tried to do this but the email address is a uk-based one. Will the letter be shown in the Irish version or what?

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2091-1290988,00.html

The Sunday Times - Ireland
October 03, 2004
Letters page contact details

Letters should be sent to: The Sunday Times, Bishop’s Square, Redmond’s Hill, Dublin 2 or e-mail: ireland@sunday-times.co.uk Fax: 01-479 2421. Letters should arrive by midday Thursday and include the full postal address plus a daytime and an evening telephone number. Please quote date, section and page number.

Mr_Man

Folks,

I'd suggest that the Irish Eidtor be contacted and ask them for a right to reply to drivel pushed by McRedmond in this article.

I notice that he did not mention the third major reason why customers cannot get DSL - splitters. The use of these devices is a direct example of Eircom, and before them TE, not investing in the infrastructure.

M.

billy the squid

Well I felt i owed it to the people who helped me get Chorus Powernet when they didnt want to give it to me,

---

Original Message

---

From: me
To: ireland@sunday-times.co.uk
Sent: Monday, October 04, 2004 4:54 AM
Subject: Comments relating to " Personal View: Eircom can't do it all on its own"


Sir

I wish to express my disagreement with some of the comments in the above mentioned article. In paragraph 2 of your article it is stated:

This might have been a legitimate expectation while Eircom was a semi- state monopoly but it is no longer the case.

While eircom is not a semi-state company anymore it is still in the position of a monopoly as it owns nearly all of the equipment involved in the telephone network in this country.

Eircom might be one of many companies in a liberated telephone market, but eircom is the only one that owns the physical network. The likes of UTV pay eircom for the use of the eircom network, you forgot to mention this in your article. Payment from these other telephone companies is more than enough to maintain the telephone network, It is not like they are not getting paid to look after the network.

I'm not the most computer savy person in the world, I know how to use computers but if you were to ask me to build one I wouldnt be able to so I'm not going to argue over the technical side of why certain parts of the country cannot even get phone lines, let alone broadband. You would be best off talking to someone like Ireland offline (http://www.irelandoffline.org) as they would know more about this stuff than I do.

I would have expected a more balanced article from a newspaper as respectable as you claim to be.

Sincerely yours

DonegalMan

damien.m wrote:

If people are writing in to the Times maybe they should post a copy of their email in this thread.

The Editor
The Sunday Times
Bishop’s Square
Redmond’s Hill
Dublin 2

Dear Sir

David McRedmond’s article ” Eircom can’t do it all on its own” in yesterday’s edition is yet another masterpiece in obfuscation.

McRedmond claims that 70% of the country is covered for Broadband yet Eircom's own marketing proudly boasts of 1,000,000 lines being enabled, which are exactly half the lines in the country. He himself recently admitted on national radio that the failure rate for lines is between 20% and 30% which means that in reality, something less than 40% of the country can actually receive Broadband from Eircom.

He accuses other companies of "doing it on the back of Eircom’s investment" - perhaps this may be influenced by the fact that Eircom's charge for Local Loop Unbundling is one of the highest in Europe - over 3 times the cost in the UK, for example.

He claims that technology related issues impose distance restrictions and "this is the same whether you live in Dublin, London or Paris". This is simply untrue - whilst Eircom have a distance restriction of about 3km, BT in the UK have now removed ALL distance restrictions.

Irish investors have taken a hammering over Eircom, yet the dividends taken out of a debt-laden company by its shareholders in the last year alone amount to five times the total amount they have planned to spend over three years on the network.

Eircom's suggestion that the Irish Government should now treat it as some sort of favoured partner and provide new funding is nothing less than stomach turning.

spongebob

Sir

I note with some regret that your recent editorial cutbacks extend to the Sunday Times Calculator Collection. Mc Redmond unchallenged stated that

1. "The nature of the technology is such that the quality of the telephone line and its distance from the local exchange determine the ability to deliver broadband. "

(In Eircoms case this means 4.5km)

2. "today 70% of the country is covered" is his other claim.

The answer in fact is Less than 20% , I shall do Mc Redmonds maths for you from first principles .

a) 200 Exchanges or so have been done I) . Each can serve customers out to 4.5km II) . The area of a circle is pi x r2 so that means an exchange can cover 64 KM Square and 200 of these would be 12750 KM Square.

b) The land area of the state is some 70000 KM square .

c) Therefore the technology has a coverage of about 18.25% which far less than Honest Dave McRedmond claims .

Please note that my 18.25% is the highest possible value and assumes a perfect distribution of telephone exchanges and absolutely straight telephone wires before reality impinges. The real figure is probably around 10% coverage . The other 90% of the country has a smattering of wireless coverage called FWA from Eircom but they wont publish a map for fear of embarassing themselves when their claims prove false, as they do . That may bring their coverage back up to 18% again.

I) Source Eircom SEC Filing Statement 137 Exchanges in March 2004 and c. 60 enabled since http://investorrelations.eircom.net/pdf/eircom_form20f_2004.pdf

II) Source Eircom Product Description in April 2003
http://mmm.eircom.ie/press/PressRelease_Target.asp?id=241&y=2003&archived=1



M

viking

Dear Sir/Madam,

I read with great interest the letter ("Personal View: Eircom can’t do it all on its own") from David McRedmond of eircom, which was published last week in the Business section (03/10/2004).

Firstly, and I say this genuinely and without cynicism, that I am extremely impressed by Mr McRedmond’s PR skills when dealing with the recent negative media focus on eircom. However, his letter that your paper published was full of misleading counterarguments.

Eircom may say that their “obligations are to its customers” but, as Mr McRedmond correctly stated, eircom is a commercially listed PLC and, by definition, it is profit-driven and its obligations are solely to its shareholders and providing them with a generous 8% dividend that has been promised. In effect, the customer comes a distant second.

The 8% dividend must be paid to investors at the same time that the company is attempting to repay a €2.2 billion loan that its previous owners, Valentia, borrowed in order to purchase the company. This dividend commitment puts serious pressure on eircom to find the cash to pay its shareholders; as a result eircom has decided to invest less in its network than it depreciates by.
Mr McRedmond may claim that eircom is investing in its network at a rate broadly in line with its European peers, however eircom’s company filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) tells a different story. The filing states that eircom’s “level of depreciation charges… currently exceeds capital expenditure and is likely to do so for the next three to four years”.[1] This is a serious case of sweating the assets at the customer’s expense, eircom aren’t even maintaining the network at its current level, they’re letting it rot in the ground.

Eircom customers currently pay the highest line rental in Europe for their telephone lines (and expect eircom to seek another rental increase early ’05) yet the network is currently being underinvested and this situation will remain for the next 3 to 4 years. This is an important factor as to why large numbers of eircom customers are not able to receive a broadband service, their lines are of dismal quality for data and will continue to be for the foreseeable future. In fact, Eircom themselves state in the SEC filing that 24% of the 1.1 million lines connected to their DSL enabled exchanges will not be able to receive broadband services, this equates to a shocking 259,000 lines. [2] By comparison in the UK, BT estimates that only 0.2% of lines are be unable to get broadband. [3]

While Mr McRedmond is correct in saying that eircom is no longer a state monopoly, it is still a monopoly with significant market power as it owns nearly all the telephone lines in Ireland and as a result the only competition is with voice calls and internet access. Mr McRedmond would have us believe that other operators are offering broadband by getting a free ride “on the back of eircom’s investment”, but the reality is that these operators must pay for their use of eircom’s network.

I dearly hope that our new Minister for Communications, Noel Dempsey, ignores the thinly veiled pleas by Mr McRedmond to have funds directed into eircom’s pocket in the guise of “completing the job of rolling out [broadband] to everybody in Ireland”. I would suggest that the Minister, and anybody else interested in this issue, have a read of eircom’s SEC filing to get a real insight into eircom’s motives and why it is necessary for Mr McRedmond to use smoke and mirrors to hide the crisis in eircom's (and Ireland’s) communications infrastructure to prevent their share price from dropping even further.

Eircom's SEC filing is available here: http://investorrelations.eircom.net/pdf/eircom_form20f_2004.pdf

Kind regards,

Gareth

Notes

[1] “As at 31 March 2004, eircom Group had distributable reserves that were sufficient to enable us to pay the aggregate dividend for the financial years to 31 March 2005 in accordance with the Board's expectations. However, following payment by us of significant dividends to our shareholders in August 2003, as part of the Reorganisation and Refinancing, members of the Group do not currently have significant additional accumulated reserves in excess of those required to pay the expected dividend for the year to 31 March 2006. As a result, any limitations on the ability of our subsidiaries to pay dividends (for example, as a result of profitability or distributable reserves in these subsidiaries being adversely affected, including for one of the reasons set out in Item 3B "Key Information—Risk Factors") may reduce our ability to pay dividends to our shareholders. In particular, primarily because the level of depreciation charges (a non-cash item which affects distributable reserves) in eircom (our principal operating subsidiary) currently exceeds capital expenditure and is likely to do so for the next three to four years, eircom is expected to generate substantially less distributable reserves than cash for at least this period.” - Source: Eircom's SEC Form F20

[2] “As of 31 March 2004, we had 137 exchanges equipped with ADSL nodes installed covering approximately 1.1 million working lines. Approximately 76% of lines (841,000) connected to these nodes would be capable of carrying ADSL at speeds from 256k-512k.” - Source: Eircom's SEC Form F20

[3] "The trial data indicates that removing the [DSL distance limit] means 99.8 per cent of lines connected to a broadband exchange should now be able to get a 512kb/sec ADSL service." - Source: http://www.btplc.com/News/Pressreleasesandarticles/Corporatenewsreleases/2004/nr0475.htm

dahamsta

I blame the paper as much as I do McRedmond. We've come to expect it from that weasel, but it's a disgrace that he was given free rein in the Times. Lot of it about this weekend...

Sir,

The piece by David McRedmond in your newspaper yesterday was incredible. Incredible that the man has the cohones to pass this FUD and guff off as his "personal view"; even more incredible that the Times would donate column inches to such blatant propaganda.

I've seen several of the responses you will have received by now, I hope you will publish them to balance out McRedmond's free advertisment. I imagine your readers will enjoy seeing some facts about Eircom, complete with supporting evidence and mathematics.

By all means, give McRedmond his own right to reply. It will be fun to watch him squirm when he can't find any facts supporting his assertions. They don't exist, which you could easily have discovered yourself with a few minutes Googling.

Regards,
Adam Beecher

eircomtribunal

viking wrote:

...to get a real insight into eircom’s motives and why it is necessary for Mr McRedmond to use smoke and mirrors to hide the crisis in eircom's (and Ireland’s) communications infrastructure to prevent their share price from dropping even further.

Gareth, do not let this most powerful piece of investigative journalism just adore the waste paper basket of the "Sunday Times". (The Sunday Times have in that special column just given space to Redmond, as they would give space to others. But they are in bed with Eircom anyway, if I remember rightly: isn't Eircom associated in a big deal with Sky, whose owners are also the owners of the Sunday Times?)

Your article needs to go the the minister and the wider media, especially to RTE. Eircom should not get away with lying to the public with impunity.

I had wrongly assumed Eircom management had misinformed their shareholders in breach of stock exchange rules about their broadband capabilities, but as you've discovered they told them the reality – it is only the Irish public they have lied to in a big way with their 1 million broadband lines claim.
I have it in Eircom's writing to the ASAI "we had 1.1 million lines connected to broadband enabled exchanges..as they are all capable of running broadband, we stand over our claim that over a million lines are broadband enabled".

Let us never forget that Eircom does all this with full knowledge and consent of Comreg.

P.

.

Mr_Man

[2] “As of 31 March 2004, we had 137 exchanges equipped with ADSL nodes installed covering approximately 1.1 million working lines. Approximately 76% of lines (841,000) connected to these nodes would be capable of carrying ADSL at speeds from 256k-512k.” - Source: Eircom's SEC Form F20

Since when does Eircom sell DSL at 256k, and if you removed the lines that were capable of only 256k how many lines would you have.

Viking great post by the way, I'd agree with Peter that you should spread the truth far and wide.

M.

Ripwave

Mr_Man wrote:

Since when does Eircom sell DSL at 256k,

Eircoms RADSL service (which is what all the other resellers are providing as well) is "rate adaptive" - that means that when it's working at 100%, you'll get 512k, but as conditions deteriorate, or the distance from the exchange increases, the signal will "degrade gracefully", down to a low of 256k.

This isn't exactly news - if it wasn't for the introduction of this technology, we'd be even further behind in the deployment of BB.

(And eircoms overly stringent test won't actually qualify your line for broadband if it isn't capable of 512k anyway, on the day that it is tested).

Undercoverguy

I cannot see why you all must moan only about eircom! Broadband is being rolled out over the country sure it may be slow but it is being done. Why must everyone pick on eircom? Why don't you all get on Irish Broadband's case to put up more High-Sites after all broadband ain't restricted to DSL phone lines? While your at it get on EsatBT's case to, if their so great why don't they get put the finger out and invest in some telecommunications technology themselves, after all eircom done it all on its own back in the day.
Sure back then it was a state owned company and had more funds but back then broadband was not in huge demand so the state didnt have to spend giant amounts on broadband technology. It's only in the last year of two while eircom are PLC broadband demand has gotten huge and eircom are doing it without state funding and having to foot the bill. Why should eircom have to replace the evey line and exchange in the country, sure it may cost a few hundred million for NTL, Chours or EsatBt to build a entire new network but it may be faster than waiting for eircom to replace a entire country of the existing ones. As for people who are out of range of most exchanges, unfortunately when it gets to you, it gets to you. Until then it goes where the people are and once every major town and city in the country have access to broadband then it will get to all the smaller towns and villages.

Also, What about NTL, Chours, LEAP, and the rest of the Broadband suppliers in this country why not go moan at them? Why depend on wired internet access why not invest in wireless broadband?

*edit*
(As much as i hate this phrase im gonna use it)
At the End of the day, my entire point is that this country cant depend on eircom forever. Sure eircom may have a monopoly on this entire sector of communications but thats largely due to the large fact that theirs nobody else playing in this big game of wired broadband. Take some pressure off eircoma and put it on ComReg and EsatBT.

As for the prices of broadband, its expensive for everyone in order to rebuild this entire existing network for broadband. I'm sure once each and every home in the country has broadband which could be by 2080 (hopefully ) the price will drop as their will be no more money being sucked from eircoms big old bank account in order to fun what we all have to admit is a MAJOR Task!
*edit*

Ya see it just the way people are in this country, when we get tired of moaning about the weather we turn to something else, in this case Eircom.

By the way to all the people who plan on taking a hundred Quotes outta this and writing smart remarks I'd just like to say 2 things:

1) Its just my view on the matter like it or not.
2) To any unnecessary comments - Water off a Ducks back.

damien

Lamb meet Slaughter.

sceptre

Undercoverguy wrote:

Ya see it just the way people are in this country, when we get tired of moaning about the weather we turn to something else, in this case Eircom.

I don't complain about the weather. OK, due to limited time, just a few points:

Eircom are the only current provider that actually have a foothold in virtually every household in the country. Their own figures (Dave McRedmond in the Sunday Times only this week) put them at 98% voice line penetration. Hence they're the provider most poised to actually give the country almost 100% broadband coverage. Hence the necessary effort is best expended in dealing with Eircom, the company with a line in every household, rather than with NTL (for example), the company with a line in a few thousand households in Dublin and precious little money. Oh there's an effort being made with NTL (for example) by people too (you'll see people commenting on it (especially in the likes of Dublin 15 - people there are whinging righteously at every company they can)) but National Transcommunications Limited (finally found out) don't have people employed just to explain why they won't install in a particular 80%-odd by land mass part of their coverage area (unlike Eircom), which is rather small in NTL's case, as well as internet from NTL being an added extra where available if anything. Plus a staggeringly high percentage of customers aren't paying full whack to NTL, IrishWISP, Leap, Chorus or anyone else for rental (and nothing else) on a physical line that won't guarantee them the basic service they may have installed the line for (see below).

With regard to it not being all that more expensive for Esat BT to build an entirely new set of exchanges, link them and run lines frmo those exchanges to each household, actually, yeah, it would be rather dramatically more expensive. Eircom could probably take away all the splitters and fix all the lines for about 100 million. Esat would need about 2 billion to follow your idea. And Esat have never been regarded as "so great" here given that it was an Esat decision that actually led to the setting up of Ireland Offline in the first place. Actually they're commonly held in the same regard as being hit in the face by a wet lettuce and as useful as the proverbial cat flap in an elephant house around here - countless posts have been devoted to pointing out how useless as a competitor to Eircom they are given that they chose not to bother competing a long time ago and can't even make up their minds about which small section of the market they'd like to eek out a living from.

As for people who are outside the range of the exchanges, the whole point of the criticism there is that the 3.5km limt imposed by Eircom is an artificial limit imposed by the company for no particular technological reason, especially given that BT in the UK have chosen to completely ignore the theoretical limit of the technology and are doing rather well with installs of 10km (and over) from the exchanges. It's even more ironic given that Eircom settled on a RADSL variant which does rather well outside the limit they've imposed (RADSL doesn't even become all that relevant until about 4km from the exchange, already outside Eircom's current limit). The real reason's probably the shoddy state of lines in the countryside, which these tough luck people are paying full price for - plenty of people can't get any sort of usable Internet access on their lines, despite a universal service obligation on Eircom (due to a failure on the part of Comreg to actually define "functional internet access"). Yeah, full price for. They're being ridden and not even getting a wet wipe in exchange.

Sure, when it gets to them it gets to them. Can't blame people for being willing to get off their asses and being willing to make an effort to make sure it gets to them a bit quicker though (or "sometime" as opposed to "never"). Some people have even set up their own networks to get themselves proper access. Some of those community networks are getting some funding from the government. Eircom wanted a cut of that too.

I've nothing personally against Eircom. I just want to see them have some regard for their customers rather than being solely concerned about guaranteeing an 8% dividend to investors so that Soros and O'Reilly could get their capital investment out. Nothing personal guys, just business. Same goes for those nice folks at Comreg reading (hello!).

I think that's actually most of your case. There aren't a hundred quotes to take from it I'm afraid. I can see your point of view, I just can't see how anyone might actually agree with it.

Undercoverguy

(As much as i hate this phrase I'm gonna use it)
At the End of the day, my entire point is that this country cant depend on eircom forever. Sure eircom may have a monopoly on this entire sector of communications but thats largely due to the large fact that theirs nobody else playing in this big game of wired broadband. Take some pressure off eircom and put it on ComReg and EsatBT.

As for the prices of broadband, its expensive for everyone in order to rebuild this entire new network of broadband. I'm sure once each and every home in the country has broadband the price will drop but until any other telecommunications company's come in to give eircom a hand it looks that that day is a LONG time away! :eek: Because as it is I'm sure money is being sucked from eircoms big old bank account at lighting speed and then from our pockets just in order fund what I'm sure we all agree is a MAJOR Task! :eek:

sceptre

Undercoverguy wrote:

Take some pressure off eircom and put it on ComReg and EsatBT.

Comreg are as guilty as Eircom. Actually Comreg are far more guilty than Eircom. Eircom are doing roughly what I'd expect them to plus their duty to shareholders is in play as well as their duty to consumers. Comreg aren't doing what I'd expect them to and they've no duty to anyone but consumers[1].

The three most guilty parties are the government, Eircom and Comreg. Put them in any order you like. The bulk of the pressure should be (and is being) applied to these three. All three have some very good people working for them but all three are holding up progress for their own gain and/or because of their own myopia in one way or another.

I'm not leaving Esat BT out of the equation but realistically they're just a bigger version of Smart Telecom. Except that Smart Telecom's billing department is better organised. Esat aren't the solution to the major problem. They may never be (though they may be a solution as part of a bigger solution), even if they've partly backed themselves into that hole. Some good people working there too (I can think of at least three and there may well be many more as my three are all people in CS I dealt with as an Esat home phone user when I was a customer).

We (and I'm making an assumption here as this is my sole committee "we") will happily engage with anyone but it makes most sense to spend the time on the main solutions (as well as putting effort into other solutions). Ireland Offline's remit isn't to reform the Irish telecoms landscape - at the moment getting people affordable internet access, in particular broadband, is mostly as far as we go. I don't personally intend on depending on Eircom forever - my phone account is with another operator as is my internet account, I'd like to see more options offered, living in Ireland's third/fourth city as I do - and I doubt anyone else intends depending on Eircom forever, but it's the single most viable solution to universal broadband in the short and mid-term for everyone who doesn't have access to another actual provider (as opposed to another DSL seller). We're not putting the long term solutions on the long finger, we're aware of the catalyst factor for exchange DSL upgrades that an alternative solution offers and I think we're all (all posters and readers) well aware of the uncertainty after Eircom's exchange upgrades officially finish in March 2005. For land line solutions, essentially Eircom own all the doors and hold all the keys. LLU has been an utter farce so this is likely to remain the case. Addressing the lack of useful regulation is one issue, encouraging expansion by alternatives is another issue. All of them are important.

The big thing is working towards changing the things we can change (or that elected officials can work to change) while not quite accepting the things that, for the moment, we can't change. The MANs are going to be a big issue in the next year when local authorities realise they have hundreds of miles of fibre between them, a management company to manage them and people and businesses near those fibre rings who can't connect to them and can't benefit from the marvellous panacea offered to them by the government and their funding. Because e-Net (the management company) are tied to Eircom that'll become a part-Eircom issue too but it'd be the same for any other management company from our point of view.

The lovely (or frustrating) thing is that every organisation mentioned above (government, Comreg, Esat, Eircom E-net, IOFFL) say they're after the same thing - affordable internet access available to as many people as possible and affodable fast internet access available to the many who want it (which is effectively as many people as possible) . Our job (and I'm using the terms "our" and "job" loosely) is just to make sure that happens while taking some time to cut through laughable ideas like satelite access being a reasonable substitute. Nothing more for the moment, nothing less. We'll have succeeded if we do that and make "as many people as possible" as close to "everyone" as we can. If we don't do that we'll have failed. I don't think any of us intend to fail.

I think there's one "we" reference above that refers to the IOFFL committee (it's the one with the assumption), all of the others refer to "we" the IOFFl membership or "we" the public. I'm not representing anyone but myself above.

Oh by the way, there isn't an entire new network of broadband. Short of FTTH (fibre to the home) or wireless taking over completely there won't be an entire new network of broadband even started in the next decade plus. Strictly on the DSL end, it's a number of lines being fixed to the level they should be at already (this should be covered by the line rental charges - it's most of what it's for) and putting racks in existing exchanges. It doesn't sound very sexy and it's actually rather less sexy than it sounds. Yochai Benkler (he's a law professor at Yale but don't let that fool you - he's got a beard) defined three different layers within a communications system - the physical layer (the wires and hardware), the logical layer (essentially the software and protocols) and the content layer (the information that runs across the wires). We're talking a (relatively small) change at both ends of the physical layer and no change to the other two layers that have anything to do with any providers. Even the physical layer change is pretty insignificant when all the base hardware already exists (the racks have to be added to the exchanges and this costs money but the exchanges already exist on privately-held-by-telco land and the lines already exist even if some of them are rotting) so the cost to the exchange-owner (Eircom as it happens) is relatively insignificant when the line repair is covered by the existing rental payments that we're all making every month. Far less (and I'm thinking by thousands of percent) expensive than the idea of building a competing physical network by any other company. Even if any other company was nutty enough to consider doing it without a massive amount of free money from the government.

[1]One could say that Comreg have a duty to "the market" as well but we could probably do without leaving cert economics or treating "the market" as an entity at the moment

lucernarian

originally posted by undercoverguy
As for people who are out of range of most exchanges, unfortunately when it gets to you, it gets to you. Until then it goes where the people are and once every major town and city in the country have access to broadband then it will get to all the smaller towns and villages.

The only reason I complain about Eircom is that I feel that this country deserves better than what we currently have when it comes to telecommunications. I am one of those customers who cant get ADSL purely (I think) because of that pointless line distance limit. I have no splitters or any other junk (that I can see) on my line and, until recently, my internet connection speeds could reach 50k so in my case it is purely eircom's fault that I cant get it. I live 6 km from the exchange you see.

DonegalMan

Undercoverguy wrote:

Sure eircom may have a monopoly on this entire sector of communications but thats largely due to the large fact that theirs nobody else playing in this big game of wired broadband.

No, it's due to the fact that when Eircom were sold off, they were given total freedom to do what they wanted with the telephone network, a vital piece of national infrastucture, paid for by the taxpayers of this country.

As for the prices of broadband, its expensive for everyone in order to rebuild this entire new network of broadband.

It's not a case of rebuilding a new network, it's a case of maintaining and upgrding the existing network. Eircom are currently spending less on the network than the amount by which they are depreciating it in their books. This is called "sweating the assets" and means that they are deliberately letting the network deteriorate to help short term cash flow.

Because as it is I'm sure money is being sucked from eircoms big old bank account at lighting speed

Eircom's budget for capital spend on the network over three years is E84 million. Last year alone, they took approximately E500 million out of the company in dividends. So who's sucking out the bank account?

LFCFan

I think Undercoverguy needs to go away and do some research before coming on here and talking utter crap!

Ripwave

DonegalMan wrote:

Eircom's budget for capital spend on the network over three years is E84 million.

Out of an income from Line Rental alone of over €400 million per year.

Undercoverguy

LFCFan wrote:

I think Undercoverguy needs to go away and do some research before coming on here and talking utter crap!

The voice of a man or rather...
The voice of a child who cant handle someones opinion!

At least everyone else had something to say. Grow up.

Ripwave

Undercoverguy wrote:

The voice of a man or rather...
The voice of a child who cant handle someones opinion!

There's informed opinion, and there's woffle.

Most of your comments are woffle - you don't appear to know what you're talking about. As such, you're wasting your time, and other peoples time, by posting irrelevancies and errors.

There's nothing special about opinions - if you said that, in your opinion, the sky is actually orange people would be perfectly entitled to point out that you're an idiot, and to ask you to go away and get your facts right before wasting bandwidth posting your "opinions".

LFCFan

thanks for that Ripwave. To have an opinion on something, you must know the facts. Clearly Undercoverguy is completely void of any knowledge on the subject of Broadband and as such should go away, find out about it, then come back and give his opinions. Then he may get some positive replies to his 'opinions'.