[Release] ComReg: Irish telecoms most expensive in EU

cgarvey

Damien was on Down To Business on NewsTalk 106 this morning. Clip on our website [1.7MB].

.cg

Sponge Bob

An Comreg have never carried the OECD Net Increase figures showing performance from one year to the next. This data will show whether they are compliant with that Ministerial Directive of Dermot Aherns from 2003.

2003-2004 . Ireland Underperforms OECD as a whole (from Comwreck) contrar to directive.



2004-2005 Ireland Ireland Underperforms OECD as a whole from OECD here , spreadsheet containing table here and table attached below .

It would be a lot worse were it not for that Ripwave rubbish distorting the figures in Comregs favour . Am I surprised ???

Judge

Sponge Bob wrote:

Why did Comreg remove a key OECD table from the June Report that was in the March report then . I refer to the Important OECD table in Fig 2.8.4 in the March report that went completely AWOL from the June report.

Whatchoo talkin' 'bout, Willis? The figure at 2.8.4 in the March report was from the EU commission not the OECD - part of their 11th Report on the Implementation of the Telecommunications Regulatory Package. That report's only published once a year.

The OECD, furthermore, published this exhaustive survey on APRIL 11th 2006 so why did Comreg ignore it one wonders .

Ignored it by publishing it as Figure 2.7.4 in the June report perhaps?

But don't let facts get in the way of a good dig at ComReg, eh?

leoc

jwt wrote:

I feel some interesting emails coming on

Could be interesting - so I take it that IOFFL is going to issue a reply to the Comreg statement?

dahamsta

I'd like to assist with the drafting of the IrelandOffline response document if I may. My first effort is quoted below; rough I know, but I think it sums up the thoughts and feelings of this IrelandOffline member quite adequately:

Dear ComReg,

Cock.

Yours sincerely,
IrelandOffline

Please let me know if there are any spelling or grammatical errors.

adam

leoc

damien.m wrote:

Lies.

Pg 49 50 and 51 of this EU report shows that for their mobile comparison baskets for low usage we are 4th most expensive country, for medium usage we are 3rd most expensive and for heavy usage we are 4th most expensive.

Hm ... having taken a look at the charts, how did you work out those rankings from them?

dahamsta

[July 03, 2006]

EUROPE'S HIGHEST PHONE CHARGES

(Daily Mail Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) IRISH phone users are paying the highest bills in Europe, it was revealed last night.

Both mobile and fixed-line rental charges are almost twice the EU average, according to new figures.

Consumer lobby groups and politicians expressed outrage at this latest manifestation of the rip-off Republic. It comes as Eircom is about to be sold to an Australian investment house for E2.4billion, as well as following huge profits for Vodafone and O2.

[...]

Sponge Bob

Judge wrote:

Whatchoo talkin' 'bout, Willis? The figure at 2.8.4 in the March report was from the EU commission not the OECD - part of their 11th Report on the Implementation of the Telecommunications Regulatory Package. That report's only published once a year.

looked back thru both just now and you are right mea culpa on that one.

Ignored it by publishing it as Figure 2.7.4 in the June report perhaps?

Quite. Anyone see what happened to the OECD average figure in 2.7.4 once Comreg redrew the stats did they ???

The OECD average is 13.6 per 100 households. Ireland is about half the OECD average at 6.9 per 100

Source spreadsheet on OECD site here

All the EU 15 are members of the OECD while not all the EU 25 are.

But don't let facts get in the way of a good dig at ComReg, eh?

. An easy target eh . I'll ask cg to edit certain of my comments out.

Thanks judge.

cgarvey

In the interests of completeness and transparency, I'd prefer to leave the original post.. honest mistakes are fine 'round here.

.cg

Sponge Bob

cgarvey wrote:

In the interests of completeness and transparency, I'd prefer to leave the original post.. honest mistakes are fine 'round here.

.cg

Fine. I withdraw the accusation that the comparative BB penetration per 100 persons figures were removed by Comreg from their report , deliberately or otherwise.

Comreg did fess up the OECD table in table 2.7.4 and not in table 2.8.4 in the June report . These are the latest OECD stats released 11 April 2006 .

Comreg then strangely portrayed the OECD average BB penetration in table 2.7.4 as about 12% (I make it) while it is actually 13.6% . The original OECD data which should be reproduced correctly by Comreg in table 2.7.4 in the June report may be found in the OECD spreadsheet here

http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/6/13/36463588.xls

Comreg left out the EU15 figures of 14.2% despite their being in the OECD report and despite there being a specific ministerial directive to get Ireland to at or above the EU15 average by date nnn (could not be bothered but its probably passed)

Comreg furthermore include ripwave installs under the category 'other' which are a figure comprising FWA and Fibre installs. The swedish other figure is mainly fibre.

The Czechs who have a fixed 3g ish wall mount gizmo which runs at 256k minimum got special permission from the OECD to include it as BB for their BB figures where Comreg got no such permission from the OECD to include the Ripwave units despite their performance being worse than the 3G gizmos in the Czech republic.

Were the Ripwaves removed from the calculation ...they being a dialup substitute and not BB .....our figures would be lower , not only in December 2005 but now. I make it that 5% of reported BB connections in Ireland are Ripwaves. I will allow Clearwire units as BB with reservations .

lucernarian

For what it's worth, ComReg did not include Digiweb's FWA customers (I presume that would include Metro as well as 3.7 Ghz.) so you could say that broadband penetration is higher than the 322500 figure in the comreg report.

The Ripwave thing is a good point, but if Clearwire is to be counted then so must Ripwave. In my time looking at the broadband forum, I can remember seeing 2 or 3 reports of Ripwave functioning fully (very infrequent in other words). But then it becomes a matter of opinion. Who's to say if Last Mile should be left out because of bad reports recently? What about when IBB had rampant problems on its overall network?

Sponge Bob

If Digiweb are not in the figures then they are probably more accurate than I thought overall. As Clearwire do deliver the correct bandwidth ..albeit with blocked ports....I would consider them worthy of inclusion.

My main objection is that 3G data is excluded from the BB figures but the Czechs asked the OECD for permission to include SOME of it because there was a fixed variant AND it was 256k minimum.

Ripwave is slid in under the radar.

leoc

damien.m wrote:

Lies.

Pg 49 50 and 51 of this EU report shows that for their mobile comparison baskets for low usage we are 4th most expensive country, for medium usage we are 3rd most expensive and for heavy usage we are 4th most expensive.

leoc wrote:

Hm ... having taken a look at the charts, how did you work out those rankings from them?

There are two entries for each country on the charts, one for each of the two biggest mobile operators in that country. Each entry shows that operator's best '05 offer (in that country) for the basket covered by that chart. I'm assuming that your figures are based on the higher of the two entries for each country, but that doesn't seem to be a very useful yardstick (the worst best offer?) Taking the lower entry for each country seems to be more interesting, as it gives you the best available offer from the biggest two operators in that country. By that ranking, we're fifth-worst for heavy usage ... second worst for medium usage, and third worst for low usage. You could I suppose also take the average of the two figures for each country, in which case we would be, for instance, third worst for low usage.

leoc

By Comreg's figures, on the other hand, we really are doing fairly well in relative terms; it's nothing like "highest mobile prices in EU according to ComReg".

Comreg's explanatory note (see p. 7) doesn't give all that much to explain the huge discrepancy:

• The Comreg mobile pricing charts are supposedly based on the top two operators in each country, just like the EU charts.
  
• Comreg's data are from Teligen T-Basket (more of the same), apparently the OECD's offically-endorsed figures. (£2,200 for the first license, in case you were wondering.)
  
• The EU says its figures are based on the current OECD baskets; it gives complete details of the baskets. (They only cover prepay, by the way.) Comreg's baskets are discussed on page 7 of the explanatory note. It doesn't give any details of the actual composition of the baskets, unless they're somewhere in the raw data.