Damien Mulley on Prime Time.

machalla

Tom Young wrote:

machalla: Number portability does exist, the EU Commission reports on two flavours.

Network to network voice portability, live and well and operating here since 1999 and 2000 for Non Geo Numbers e.g., 1800 and Geo Numbers since 2000.

GNP LLU Portability (For unbundled local loop lines) very different. Not available widely mainly due to complexity and problems with incumbent systems. Some countries resolved, others realised that ULL would die off, unlike Smart.

Take care in your statement.

"I wanted to just check, we are the only country in the EU that cannot port landline numbers from the one company to another (ie.Eircon landline numbers couldn't transfer to smart)?"

It was a query not a statement, hence the question mark. If I knew for definite I wouldn't be asking. Probably should have phrased the query "are we".

So what countries (within the EU) are comparable to here then. By which I mean which ones also prevent transfer of numbers in the same way Eircon prevented Smart customers transferring numbers?

thebman

Tom Young wrote:

So you support my position on reckless trading by Smart?

Honestly, do you think there would be any competition if a regulator had that type of control?? I think not.:rolleyes:

Smart were reckless in that they never told their customers they were about to lose access. Smart should have been obliged to do so if they were about to loose all services to their customers.

But we don't know how much warning Eircom gave them. Eircom should have informed Smart who should have informed their customers. Do we know Eircom did that or are we just assuming they did? Eircom could have said they didn't pay up so they should be expecting to be cut off for all we know.

What kind of control? All I want is for customers not to end up being cut off from a phone service when they did nothing wrong. Thats not asking for much IMO :rolleyes: .

I would have been happy enough if Eircom had rang every smart customer and said we are cutting the service because they've not paid the bills, would like to rejoin Eircom but they didn't.

johncorleone

Tom Young wrote:

The ISP industry is not regulated. Have you missed something? or is that terminology I am struggling with.

I'll read that as 'communications industry' as I guess that's what you might have meant.

I'm going to end this debate here, I haven't got the time or energy to argue with you over semantics. I bid you good day sir.

Tom Young

machalla wrote:

"I wanted to just check, we are the only country in the EU that cannot port landline numbers from the one company to another (ie.Eircon landline numbers couldn't transfer to smart)?"

It was a query not a statement, hence the question mark. If I knew for definite I wouldn't be asking. Probably should have phrased the query "are we".

So what countries (within the EU) are comparable to here then. By which I mean which ones also prevent transfer of numbers in the same way Eircon prevented Smart customers transferring numbers?

Portability exists and functions, ergo no problem.

GNP LLU Portability, exists, it takes time, ergo a diet version.

Apologies I had a problem with your syntax and didn't see the "?"

Tom.

Tom Young

johncorleone wrote:

I'm going to end this debate here, I haven't got the time or energy to argue with you over semantics. I bid you good day sir.

I think you left out 'knowledge' as well, just after the 'time or energy' section.

Good day to you too.

Mad Finn

Tom Young wrote:

Portability exists and functions, ergo no problem.

GNP LLU Portability, exists, it takes time, ergo a diet version.

So why did we have to change our number then?

Or are you just making a semantic argument?

RangeR

Tom Young wrote:

I think you left out 'knowledge' as well, just after the 'time or energy' section.

Good day to you too.

Seriously dude, where do you get off with that attitude. I can only believe that Eircom Fanboys can reason that Eircom has done nothing wrong.

Nobody is disputing the fact that Smart were reckless with their finances but this mess wouldn't have arose if Eircom had played fair. They intentionally blocked Smart at every turn since day 1 or close to it.

Just one example is that Eircom, on numerous occaisions, refused to transfer customers to Smart because they claimed there were errors in the customer details. This was pure crap. It was a stalling tactic. When Smart re-applied to Eircom WITH THE EXACT SAME DETAILS [sometimes for a third time], Eircom then transferred.

I accept your argument that LLU portability was hampered because the phone number was the "key" to identify a line. This should have NEVER been the case. Bit OT but no good developer would define a database structure in that way. Forward thinking conspiracy theory???? Maybe

Anyway, It's not all smelling of roses, as you think it is. Eircom have dirty hands and I don't know how anyone could think otherwise.

Even IF Eircom were in the clean, they have shown complete disregard for tens of thousands of people in Ireland by cutting them off without notice. Even emergancy calls.... That tells me that Eircom don't care about their current or future customers.

Foxwood

IrishTLR wrote:

I accept your argument that LLU portability was hampered because the phone number was the "key" to identify a line.

Surely if the number was an identifier for the line, it would mean that transfering the number with the line woud be the default procedure, and it woud be harder to assign a new number to that line, rather than keeping the original number attached to othe line.

johncorleone

Tom Young wrote:

I think you left out 'knowledge' as well, just after the 'time or energy' section.

Good day to you too.

As someone who had worked in the ISP industry for the past 8 years in both the UK and Ireland I'll leave you to work out who is short on knowledge here.

RangeR

Foxwood wrote:

Surely if the number was an identifier for the line, it would mean that transfering the number with the line woud be the default procedure, and it woud be harder to assign a new number to that line, rather than keeping the original number attached to othe line.

Fair point. If that;s the case, then I really don't know what the problem is with number portability on LLU. Maybe I'm missing something. How difficult would it be, unless the ONLY reason is to hold up the competition.

I class competition as LLU, not the likes of UTV, BT, Perlico etc. They are still have to give too much money to Eircom. Can't wait until I rip out my phone line.

Sponge Bob

It took me 6 months to port my number to blueface from when I started the process. It works fantastically efficiently in Ireland from what i can see ....fair play to everybody involved especially eircom. Sure they pulled out all th stops for me.

watty

Tom Young wrote:

Portability exists and functions, ergo no problem.

GNP LLU Portability, exists, it takes time, ergo a diet version.

Apologies I had a problem with your syntax and didn't see the "?"

Tom.

No kind of sensible portability exists. I'm on my 4th 061 number at the SAME address.

No kind of affordable LLU process exists either.

That is why BT is not investing here and only Magnet/Smart attempting LLU as they have no buisness really at all without it. I know several companies that would enter the LLU market if it *REALLY* worked. Porting an Eircom number is a sick joke.

The only number portability that works in a timely sensible fashion appears to be Mobile numbers, and we waited a long time for that to be resolved.

watty

BT would like to do LLU etc but won't till the method changes. They can't make money out of the present mad system.

viking

Foxwood wrote:

Surely if the number was an identifier for the line, it would mean that transfering the number with the line woud be the default procedure, and it woud be harder to assign a new number to that line, rather than keeping the original number attached to othe line.

"A completely outage free LLU order including voice services (as well as broadband) may not actually be possible without changing the number. Eircom's internal systems use the actual telephone number as the “unique identifier” in their database. Each record in the database stores all the associated services (voicemail, diverts, etc) in relation to that particular telephone number. If that telephone number is unbundled and a GNP order is then placed by the other operator to move the number onto their network, eircom's internal systems identify that number as having moved off eircom's network and therefore all services associated with it are cancelled including LLU. This results in the customers telephone line being completely cut off when the number is ported!"

Taken from IrelandOffline Wiki (which seems offline atm)

The above is the crux of the issue with the legacy systems in eircom that were never designed with LLU / GLUMP in mind. Eircom estimate that it will cost c. €17 million to change the system

Valentia

Tom Young wrote:

1) eircom had nothing to do with it failing.

Quote of the week, even the decade. LOL

Is1ldur

Finding Tom Young's points very interesting. Just my 2c as a private individual. I'm not an eircom fanboy btw, I've had BB with Esat for the past 3 or 4 years.
I've had the chance to look at Smart's accounts. (They are available from the CRO and from Smart's website), and they did not make good reading. It was becoming obvious that time would run out eventually for them, however the fact that they had significant backing, in the form of Brendan Murtagh (worth over half a billion, roughly), gave me some level of comfort, as well as the fact that they appeared to be winning customers, i.e., news reports that they had won this or that contract. It has only come out over the past month or so that targets were not being met to a huge degree. It was always at the back of my mind that eventually Mr. Murtagh and the other investors would call time. It seems that this is what happened, as Smart did not miss payments to Eircom just for the fun of it, they must have missed them because the money was not there. This, I feel, is the single most important fact.
From the most recent news reports, it seems the investors are going to go back in for another round, and I hope they do, but the business they had last month (hell even last week!) is gone and will not be back. The new Smart will have to be a very different animal going forward.
Not to be a doomsayer, and I stress this is my personal opinion, you would do well to have a look at the accounts of some of the other BB providers. Some of them are in a worse position to Smart, or heading the same direction. Critical mass is needed in a market where margins are this tight, and the smaller guys seem to throw everything they can at advertising in the hope that the customers will come.

machalla

The conclusion to be drawn is that there is clearly not a level playing field in the telecoms sector in Ireland. In the UK a decent regulator has levelled the field to the extent that BT have started to win customers back due to a good product and good prices (which only happened when they were forced to compete and lost a lot of customers to strong competitiors).

They have pretty much universal BB over there, even up the North! Places in the middle of the countryside have no problem getting BB due to the effects of a decent regulatory environment.

We seem to copy the brits in an awful lot of things over here. For once I wish we would do so again.

oxegen tix

"Even IF Eircom were in the clean, they have shown complete disregard for tens of thousands of people in Ireland by cutting them off without notice. Even emergancy calls.... That tells me that Eircom don't care about their current or future customers."

In a nutshell - DO NOT go back to eircom

lucernarian

Tom Young wrote:

The ISP industry is not regulated. Have you missed something? or is that terminology I am struggling with.

I'll read that as 'communications industry' as I guess that's what you might have meant.

If you ran a business I trust you'd run it properly?

You'd carry out due diligence on offerings, markets, competition, and you hire the best you could afford?

The regulator is just not to blame here. You have to quit blaming them.

Smart got all the air time they needed at ComReg, at every level. I know this to be true. The regulator did all in their powers to support them, effectively this matter tarnishes parties now in all peoples/Regulator's and investors eyes. Its frankly not good.

You do not specify what exactly the regulator is not to blame for. ComReg are hardly responsible for a poor accountant or economist compiling a business plan's like ST.

There are questions not being asked here. I am going to ask you on your opinion of the following:

If eircom gave the company 19 warnings, for want of the technical term, was it acceptable that ST were permitted to carry on as normal by ComReg?

Should customers have been fully protected from such an event or should "caveat emptor" be the lesson learned for ST's customers?

Is it sustainable to have an industry where telephones are regulated extensively and ISPs with little more than guidelines?

If there is a "diet" GNP LLU product, as you nonchalantly describe it, why was the proceedure for this not enacted sooner than less than 2 months ago? Why were private companies left to negotiate it for themselves when there direct conflicts of interest from the beginning, 6 odd years ago?

Why has eircom's timing and the follow-up marketing stunts over the last 48 hours been disregarded to date by the regulator?

jwt

Last Word today at 5

Matt Cooper, Richard Curran (Deputy Editor of the Sunday Business Post) and I talking about about SMART.

http://audio.todayfm.com/audio/20061004170010.mp3

5 min to 20 min

Comreg refused to come on air. Wonder why.


John

cgarvey

If you are cause a car crash by breaking a red light, are you solely at fault if the car coming through the green light is doing twice the speed limit (and had it been doing the speed limit, the crash would have been avoided)? That's the crux of the debate here.

Smart are at fault for:

• Failing to manage their business responsibly / pay bills, etc.
• Failing to alert customers of probable outage on receiving the termination notice from eircom (any of 'em)
• Failing to review the LLU market before entry (it was clear there was no number portability, no mass migration, no automated services, and no SLAs in place at the time)
• Failing to offer LLU number portability (GLUMP) once it did become available (Magnet do/did)

So clearly they are at fault and very much so. However ComReg & the DCMNR are, too, at fault for failing to provide what most would consider a fair and reasonable operating environment to them (supported by the anti-competitive court case Smart v eircom). They are to blame for

• Failing to provide GLUMP (or an equivalent) when it became blatently obvious it would be needed more than 5 years ago
• Failing to enforce any level of conformance on eircom. Targets were introduced for LLU, but without any consequence (and ComReg do have the power to fine, despite some opinion to the contrary). Even when these targets weren't met for months, nay years, on end and even when they were disimproving, no consequences were enforced or threatened.
• Failing to forsee any common sense applications of competition in the market (i.e. considering data and voice services on the same line by different provider, allowing for straight swap of twisted between LLU providers, than having to go back to the incumbent, a mess of CPS/WLR and LLU combinations (or lack thereof) etc.)
• Failing to agressively follow up consumer complaints about simple changes taking time measured in years rather than days (e.g. GNP), and fine the telcos involved... or failing to enfoce ANY sort of SLA on eircom wholesale.. that is ANY SLA at all.
• Deliberately misreporting stats to favour the role of ComReg, rather than the underlying complete failure of competition in the market.
• Completely ignoring there consumer remit.

Smart are the red light breakers.. but ComReg (&DCMNR) are the car going through the green light. Which is more to blame? You decide.

Finally, I can't see how people can blame eircom. They are operating within the remit of the law, and in the best interests of their shareholders. If there are no penalties, and regulatory directions are merely guidelines, why would they worry about them. If you owned a business (especially of this size in this market), would you behave any differently? They're doing a remarkable job. The fact that they are allowed to do what they do is what we need to look at. The anti-competitveness is probably grey area legally.. but unless there's clear cut rules and penalties then the "oh sorry, we made a mistake in WinBack calling you" excuses will quickly clear up.

.. Moderator hat on.. can we stick to the debate and stop with the childish cheap shots and semantics.

Tom Young

To_be_confirmed wrote:

You do not specify what exactly the regulator is not to blame for. ComReg are hardly responsible for a poor accountant or economist compiling a business plan's like ST.

ComReg are not to blame for this position. Gross mismanagement and inept financial control are to blame for this entire debacle. Nobody's a winner.

There are questions not being asked here. I am going to ask you on your opinion of the following:

If eircom gave the company 19 warnings, for want of the technical term, was it acceptable that ST were permitted to carry on as normal by ComReg?

Matter of opinion: I believe eircom wholesale are not in the business of cutting off wholesale customers. There are Billing Dispute Criteria stipulated in the industry Reference Interconnection Offering (RIO) which is available in draft on http://www.eircomwholesale.ie

A couple of companies have come close to ceases in the past with eircom. None have been terminal, as they funded the invoices due to the supplier eircom. As the RIO (above) is regulated and we have seen the net results of a contractual problem, the outcomes are ugly for all concerned.

Now ....who else is owed money by ST? Are BT, NTL, ESB, MCI? On a rough napkin top guess, I'd say yes. If eircom are the lender/carrier of last resort you can guarantee ST were taking services elsewhere. The other carriers are being silent for good reason.

To_be_confirmed wrote:

Should customers have been fully protected from such an event or should "caveat emptor" be the lesson learned for ST's customers?

Opinion: Caveat Emptor applies. Note posting above re: filed accounts and cash burn. ST tried to replicate the ESAT/O'Brien sell the company DOTcom boom manoeuvre, it failed, with high compensation to the management of the company and various forms of mismanagement.

To_be_confirmed wrote:

Is it sustainable to have an industry where telephones are regulated extensively and ISPs with little more than guidelines?

Opinion: Telephones are linear devices, including mobiles to some extent. They are complicated by point to point network operation and functionality. Complicated by signalling and numbers.

The Internet on the other hand, where access is available is a ubiquitous set of interconnected technologies joined by relatively structured set of non-linear addresses i.e., IP addresses. Uncomplicated, fairly dumb (IMO) and relatively point to multipoint, or even multipoint to multipoint, if access is available.

The internet and TCP was developed in the late 1970's as a military communications platform, under the guises of the US ARPA project. I have had the pleasure of working with two individuals who wrote and tested various aspects of this test platform. The ARPA projects ultimate aim was to give military services and personnel a 'recovering', secure and multipoint access technology based on addresses. Then came Sir Tim Berners-Lee with the WWW.

Regulation of this space would detract from transfer of technology neutrality mantra's which are originating in Brussels.

To_be_confirmed wrote:

If there is a "diet" GNP LLU product, as you nonchalantly describe it, why was the procedure for this not enacted sooner than less than 2 months ago? Why were private companies left to negotiate it for themselves when there direct conflicts of interest from the beginning, 6 odd years ago?

I don't quite understand the second part. Industry neglected to carry out due diligence here when requested LLU. GNP was not part of the discussions with the initial LLU debate in 1999/2000. ST propagated recent interest in LLU to be frank, and never checked the issues with numbering and portability out before getting contracts signed (some might add that this was to get further funding from the IFX or AIM investors). Magnet came later but with a far more measured and logical approach to the market, they should be commended for this approach.

As you can imagine, its is analogous to colonic irrigation to dig in to systems developed for telephone lines and make features flexible enough for modern programming languages and interfaces. In fairness to ComReg and eircom, efforts were made to drive this in the correct direction.

My own view is that this could easily be superseded by FTTP or NGN strategies and erode DSLAM/LLU investments are exchanges are closed down.

To_be_confirmed wrote:

Why has eircom's timing and the follow-up marketing stunts over the last 48 hours been disregarded to date by the regulator?

I don't think it has to be honest. I believe ComReg's main aim now is restoration of service. There was a meeting to discuss this at ComReg yesterday at 4 pm. I have no details as to the content or outcome of that meeting.

Tom Young

Is1ldur wrote:

Finding Tom Young's points very interesting. Just my 2c as a private individual. I'm not an eircom fanboy btw, I've had BB with Esat for the past 3 or 4 years.
I've had the chance to look at Smart's accounts. (They are available from the CRO and from Smart's website), and they did not make good reading. It was becoming obvious that time would run out eventually for them, however the fact that they had significant backing, in the form of Brendan Murtagh (worth over half a billion, roughly), gave me some level of comfort, as well as the fact that they appeared to be winning customers, i.e., news reports that they had won this or that contract. It has only come out over the past month or so that targets were not being met to a huge degree. It was always at the back of my mind that eventually Mr. Murtagh and the other investors would call time. It seems that this is what happened, as Smart did not miss payments to Eircom just for the fun of it, they must have missed them because the money was not there. This, I feel, is the single most important fact.
From the most recent news reports, it seems the investors are going to go back in for another round, and I hope they do, but the business they had last month (hell even last week!) is gone and will not be back. The new Smart will have to be a very different animal going forward.
Not to be a doomsayer, and I stress this is my personal opinion, you would do well to have a look at the accounts of some of the other BB providers. Some of them are in a worse position to Smart, or heading the same direction. Critical mass is needed in a market where margins are this tight, and the smaller guys seem to throw everything they can at advertising in the hope that the customers will come.

Thanks. I tend not to post up or even comment unless my homework is done.

You're right about the accounts and the other BB providers also, 10.5% margin is not much, unless the BB is a loss leader.

Tom.

Sponge Bob

Ring buttsy and ask him, he was at that meeting . His number is here.

http://www.comreg.ie/_fileupload/publications/PR031006.pdf

Tom Young

watty wrote:

No kind of sensible portability exists. I'm on my 4th 061 number at the SAME address.

No kind of affordable LLU process exists either.

That is why BT is not investing here and only Magnet/Smart attempting LLU as they have no buisness really at all without it. I know several companies that would enter the LLU market if it *REALLY* worked. Porting an Eircom number is a sick joke.

The only number portability that works in a timely sensible fashion appears to be Mobile numbers, and we waited a long time for that to be resolved.

Sorry but it does.

Sponge Bob

Tom Young wrote:

Sorry but it does.

Only in your dreams Tom, why did it take eircom 6 months to port my number .....in fact only a Comreg person (IMO) could make this class of assertation that a process has been dealt with when the dog on the street and his bitch know its not ?????

You will be telling us next that regulation actually works properly in Ireland

Blaster99

I think your definition of working is very similar to that of ComReg. In the rest of the world, working means

getting service within a couple of days
number porting that works

With those barriers in place, it's very difficult to win customers even if you are half the price of the main competitor. Other providers in the same price group who don't rely on EirComReg are not really major players despite not having all the obstacles Smart faced. This price competition (NTL, Digiweb, etc) also implies that Smart had a viable pricing strategy, as it happens. The only thing that's not viable is LLU, which is blatantly obvious if you look at the abysmal take-up of LLU.

And then we have the whole muppetry around the 3G licence, **** Smart could have done without but with EirComReg running the show, that was bound to go pear-shaped. I guess Smart doesn't quite have the luck or political know-how of Esat at the time, who faced very similar problems.

Tom Young

Pg 154:

Number Portability

http://europa.eu.int/information_society/policy/ecomm/doc/implementation_enforcement/annualreports/11threport/sec_2006_193-vol1.pdf

According to the data of October 2005, a total of 50 826 fixed numbers and 330 000
mobile numbers were ported in Ireland. The consumer friendly process which facilitates
customers in porting their number in approximately two hours and which provides no
direct retail charges is seen as a key driver of number portability. However the prices for
the inter-operator handling charges for fixed and mobile portability have remained
amongst the highest in the EU 25.

watty

One company is now marketing a BB/Phone product on basis that the customer mustn't ask for a number to be ported. Why whould they do that if non-mobile fixed line number porting worked?

crawler

Geo Number porting in Ireland is :- slow, manual, difficult, cumbersome, frustrating (mainly for the customer), limited and basically horrible.

Needs to be the same as MNP which works very very well.

End of discussion.