ComReg urged to toughen up on pricing

damien

http://www.enn.ie/frontpage/news-9562487.html

ComReg needs to make a move on reducing local loop unbundling prices in Ireland, a European telecoms analyst has warned.

A report by research group Current Analysis states that Ireland has unbundled a mere 2,500 lines nationwide, giving the country the second lowest local loop unbundling (LLU) record in Europe. Further price cutting is essential to a competitive telecoms market, author Sandra O'Boyle warned.

"The high LLU prices Eircom is charging have seriously curtailed innovation in areas like broadband, voice over DSL and SDSL for business customers," said O'Boyle, analyst with Current Analysis and author of the report, speaking with ElectricNews.Net. "A reduction in LLU charges would also allow other operators to lower broadband charges to below EUR40 which would almost definitely encourage take-up."

With such high prices to enter the exchanges, operators are dependent on re-selling Eircom products. Bearing this in mind, the report says Eircom is unlikely to develop a voice over DSL product as it would seriously undermine its lucrative voice business. A voice over DSL product would be beneficial to customers who would essentially be able to make free calls over their broadband connection. Unless other operators can afford the LLU charges, innovative products like this will not make it to market, argues the report.

Eircom's main competitor in the fixed line market, Esat BT, has only unbundled 40 exchanges to date and only with the help of funding from the European Union. Countries like Italy and France, where there is strong competition in the local access market, have fared well with the roll-out of broadband as incumbents have been under pressure from competitors -- FastWeb and Free respectively -- to offer competitive prices, the report notes.

"Eircom's LLU charges are out of whack with other European countries," said O'Boyle. "ComReg needs to look around at other EU markets and see what the incumbents are charging there, then they need to get tougher on Eircom and demand a lowering of the prices, a move which is essential to create much-needed competition in the market," she added.

BT, the UK telecoms giant, has recently announced it will be reducing its LLU charges by up to 70 percent. The company said it was able to do this by improving its internal processes. This solution is something which could be taken on board by Eircom, according to O'Boyle. "A lot of Eircom's processes are still manual; if they were to automate these processes they would be able to offer lower LLU prices," she said.

In response to the report, ComReg said it was hoping to see prices fall further.

"We have fixed an LLU price that is lower than Eircom had asked for, and we will be looking into reducing process charges and related costs to make it easier for other companies to access local exchanges in the near future," said a spokesperson for ComReg, speaking with ElectricNews.Net.

bealtine

damien.m wrote:

In response to the report, ComReg said it was hoping to see prices fall further.

"We have fixed an LLU price that is lower than Eircom had asked for, and we will be looking into reducing process charges and related costs to make it easier for other companies to access local exchanges in the near future," said a spokesperson for ComReg, speaking with ElectricNews.Net. .

I wonder will they be using the same myopic "looking into" glasses that had them "looking into" FIA for almost 2 years and doing zilch?

Perhaps they could borrow a pair of "looking into" glasses from Ofcom
but the risk there would be that they might actually see something...

Free "looking into" glasses with every packet of cornflakes

jwt

"We have fixed an LLU price that is lower than Eircom had asked for, and we will be looking into reducing process charges and related costs to make it easier for other companies to access local exchanges in the near future," said a spokesperson for ComReg, speaking with ElectricNews.Net.

Perhaps they'll set a price for process charges and work up to a price that is acceptable to Eircom as they did with LLU

What exactly does looking into it mean.......everytime ComReg is presented with an opportunity to do something they immediately look for a way of putting it off and deferring the decission. Wait for a raft of consultations from Comreg regarding access to local exchanges followed by interim reports followed by a marginal change years later.

"The high LLU prices Eircom is charging have seriously curtailed innovation in areas like broadband, voice over DSL and SDSL for business customers,"

Really, honest cause ComReg seem to think they've done Ireland a huge favour setting the current LLU price. Why does ComReg remind me constantly of the joke about a mother watching her son marching in formation and exclaiming that all the other soldiers are marching out of step!



John

eircomtribunal

damien.m wrote:

"We have fixed an LLU price that is lower than Eircom had asked for,.." said a spokesperson for ComReg

Eircom had asked for €28, so John Doherty probably wants us to congratulate him for setting a price nearly half of that.
Lucky us, Eircom did not ask for € 44 or €56.

P.