State Aid for BB: discuss

watty

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/03/22/ec_state_aid/

"Deployment of broadband may be hampered by market failures in rural and remote areas," said Viviane Reding, commissioner for Information society and media, yesterday. "In such cases, well-targeted state aid may therefore be appropriate...but we have to make sure that state aid does not crowd out private initiative, nor distort competition to an extent contrary to the common interest."

Sponge Bob

awww Watty not again

damien

Well done Wales?

Sponge Bob

All Wales got is what we are threatened with , namely that every exchange is DSL enabled but because much of the country is rural many people will have problems getting DSL owing to distance because the exchanges are a tad more spread out than in Ireland .

Additionally most people in Wales (90%) live really close to the north coast or really close to the south coast witha few valleys thrown in. Most of Wales by area is ultra rural and with brutally bumpy terrain where much of Ireland is pretty flat or undulating gently .

Universal DSL enabling of exchanges is not Universal BB , even in the UK where DSL technology works to 10km out as distinct from the anorexic 4.5km limit we have here.

Apart from that well done Wales , now go do the wireless bits . I'm sure ye will manage a universal service before our government does.

Sponge Bob

The large and in places ultra rural Yorkshire announced a scheme to all exchnages enabled too. Yorkshire, in fairness, has a far greater population than Ireland does, but they are crammed in the south of it . The North and West of the county are high moor with a few villages here and there . To give you an idea, Cork has 2880 square miles of territory. Yorkshire is over twice as large as Cork at 6000 square miles . Yorkshire is , in fact , 90% the size of Connacht. .

Not surprisingly Yourshire has its own BB information site with a list of exchanges and a nice map , thats here .

The red spots on that map were the small rural exchanges. They never had a trigger level.

In January 2006, a program was announced to enable those final 24 Yorkshire exchanges serving 4000 households and 800 businesses, average 166 households per exchange. Thats mentioned here.

the Welsh program is similar.

crawler

Before I am shot...I know this is cynical but it has been said to me by someone who should have known better

There is a view that if all exchanges were DSL enabled that the true extent of the poor copper in Ireland would become obvious to all and therefore enabling 100% of exchanges is not really wanted at all....

crawler

I think I am getting bitter in my old age

bealtine

watty wrote:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/03/22/ec_state_aid/

State aid is fine as far as it goes. How else can rural exchanges ever get enabled?
Enabling exchanges isn't the major stumbling block here.

Our problem is utterly crap cabling from years of underinvestment and the Kafkaesque attitude of the regulator and eircom

A typical conversation will go something like this:
does your phone work :
Customer : eh sometimes
Well tough (there's nothing you can do about it ha ha ha)
and so on

Until this situation is addressed and/or we get some new cabling here and get some basic guarantees that the cabling isn't still the same rubbish that was in the ground in the 50's, we will continue to live in this catch-22 situation.

Enabling exchanges without any guarantees is simply a waste of money

The so called 4.5 km distance limits are symptomatic of the utterly poor infrastructure here. Most other civilised (including many in the third world) countries can get their distance limits out to 10km or so...We have to live with effective limits of about 3kms or so here(if it works at all).

The question is will the government invest in the local loop which is where the investment is required most of all?

Sponge Bob

crawler wrote:

There is a view that if all exchanges were DSL enabled that the true extent of the poor copper in Ireland would become obvious to all and therefore enabling 100% of exchanges is not really wanted at all....

Thats why I posited my 2 90's rule . Otherwise its a complete waste of taxpayers money.

Additionally the going rate for enabling an exchange has gone up. About 1-2 years ago eircom took money from some GBS funding ( Oughterard Co Galway) and from Udarás na Gaeltachta (8 exchanges in Donegal/Cork/Galway/Mayo/Kerry ) and were enabling exchanges once they received about €100k per unit ....no matter how small or rural.

As there are some 700 exchanges undone and unprogrammed to be done , if not 800, that would translate into an €80m project were it to be replicated nationwide. It does not provide Universal BB of course but at €80m its not an atrocious cost compared to say Roads.

The problem now is that Eircoms asking price per exchange has recently shot up to €300k Minimum which would mean that such a project would cost €240m ...probably to pay off Biddys Deafness Claims more than provide BB, and with no guarantees on pass rates for the copper either.

Its not worth spending €240m on when €240m would actually build a MAN to within 25km of every home in Ireland and connect lit ESB fibre to it too .

Greed and ultra-shortsightedness have finally tripped eircom up , consider that price per exchange to be the tipping point !

Tom Young

State aid?


The rules are complicated. I think not, but it is down to the package of measures that the government and private stakeholders agree on, at or prior to completion of a package or roll-out.

The Treaty rules on state aid are quite complex. Arts 81, 82, 86 and 87 are of note to this discuss question. Go read ....:cool:

Article 81 of the EC Treaty (was Article 85 in the Treaty of Rome) prohibits agreements and concerted practices which prevent, restrict or distort competition, insofar as they may affect trade between Member States, unless justified by improvements in production or distribution in accordance with Article 81(3).

Article 82 of the EC Treaty (was Article 86 in the Treaty of Rome) prohibits the abuse of a dominant position insofar as it may affect trade between Member States.

The full text is available from the European Commission's website at:

http://europa.eu.int/comm/competition/l…lation/treaties/ec/art82_en.html
This is reproduced below:

"Any abuse by one or more undertakings of a dominant position within the common market or in a substantial part of it shall be prohibited as incompatible with the common market insofar as it may affect trade between Member States.
Such abuse may, in particular, consist in:
(a) directly or indirectly imposing unfair purchase or selling prices or other unfair trading conditions;
(b) limiting production, markets or technical development to the prejudice of consumers;
(c) applying dissimilar conditions to equivalent transactions with other trading parties, thereby placing them at a competitive disadvantage;
(d) making the conclusion of contracts subject to acceptance by the other parties of supplementary obligations which, by their nature or according to commercial usage, have no connection with the subject of such contracts."
Council Regulation 1/2003 provides for the application of this prohibition.

Article 86 of the EC Treaty (was Article 90 in the Treaty of Rome) makes provisions for public undertakings and undertakings to which Member States grant special or exclusive rights.

The full text is available from the European Commission's website at:

http://europa.eu.int/comm/competition/l…lation/treaties/ec/art86_en.html
Article 86(1) applies to States, and ensures the effectiveness of the free-trade, non-discrimination and competition rules set out elsewhere in the Treaty:

(1) In the case of public undertakings and undertakings to which Member States grant special or exclusive rights, Member States shall neither enact nor maintain in force any measure contrary to the rules contained in this Treaty, in particular to those rules provided for in Article 12 and Articles 81 to 89.
In particular, Article 86(1) it prohibits discrimination on the grounds of nationality through national rules governing public undertakings. It has also been interpreted (see for example Corbeau) as prohibiting States from creating or maintaining special or exclusive rights which would have the same effect as an abuse of a dominant position by the relevant undertaking.

Article 86(2) applies to public undertakings and to undertakings that have been granted special or exclusive rights by a State:

(2) Undertakings entrusted with the operation of services of general economic interest or having the character of a revenue-producing monopoly shall be subject to the rules contained in this Treaty, in particular to the rules on competition, insofar as the application of such rules does not obstruct the performance, in law or in fact, of the particular tasks assigned to them. The development of trade must not be affected to such an extent as would be contrary to the interests of the Community.
Article 86(2) provides a justification for acts that would otherwise infringe the competition rules, in particular Article 81 and Article 82, insofar as they are proportionate to legitimate purposes arising from their having been entrusted with the operation of services of general economic interest (public services) or having the character of a revenue-producing monopoly (fiscal monopoly: monopole fiscal in the French text).

Article 86(3) entrusts the European Commission with enforcement of these provisions:

(3) The Commission shall ensure the application of the provisions of this Article and shall, where necessary, address appropriate directives or decisions to Member States.


Article 87 (State aid)
Article 87 of the EC Treaty (which is based on Article 92 in the Treaty of Rome) prohibits certain State aids, and authorises the European Commission to clear some such aids as "compatible with the common market".

The full text is available from the European Commission's website at:

http://europa.eu.int/comm/competition/l…lation/treaties/ec/art87_en.html