RTE gives Eircom/Comreg a good little slating

Chris_533976

Short, sharp, and to the point, surprisingly

Ireland's poor performance in delivering broadband internet access has been slammed by a new European Commission report.

Broadband availability in Ireland is at just 10%, significantly lower than the EU average, while the cost of access is the highest.

The commission says the best performing countries like Denmark, which, at 30% has the world's highest availability rate, and Holland have intense competition.

The commission blames weak regulation of the telecoms sector here.

The lack of competition in Ireland is illustrated by the wholesale charges. This is the amount in monthly line rental eircom charges other broadband suppliers before they can sell on to you. At €15 a month, it is the highest in Europe.

The commission says COMREG, the telecoms watchdog, lacks teeth.

It has had little success forcing change on eircom, as the most the company can be fined under current Irish law is just €3,000.

http://www.rte.ie/news/2007/0329/broadband.html

Zoney

I particularly like the image in the top right with Comreg logo and caption "COMREG 'Lacks teeth'"

Solair

How did anyone hope to enforce anything against large telecommunications companies with a €3000 fine.

That's like expecting to enforce parking with a 1 cent fine!:D

Noel Dial-up Dempsey was on Newstalk this morning too and got an absolute slating along with eircom's PR person and Comreg.

damien

Solair wrote:

That's like expecting to enforce parking with a 1 cent fine!:D

At least there is a record of the fine in that case.

jor el

I saw this report on News2 last night. Interesting stuff but I suppose nothing will come of it, as usual. Surely the the EC can force the Irish Government to do something about eirComreg.

Has eircom ever been fined by Comreg then does anyone know, or are those details never made public?

JohnC.

Solair wrote:

Noel Dial-up Dempsey was on Newstalk this morning too and got an absolute slating along with eircom's PR person and Comreg.

I caught the end of it and one of them, presumably the eircom person, seemed to be refusing to acknowledge that they are expensive, instead just repeating that they have the fifth best entry level product a few times.

mike65

RTE did nothing! Just reported it. I did hear some bod from eircrumb on Newstalk fielding questions regarding BB availibity this lunchtime. The usual stuff.

Mike.

qwertplaywert

the problem is, thier all only complaining about lack of availibity, and letting eircom and the other weasles give sensationally vauge answers
they should be pushing eircom into dating months,instead of years, actions instead of possible solutions

Zoney

RTÉ News online have a little infobox in the corner of some news pages now linking to that article. The caption reads "It's official. Ireland's broadband ranks near the bottom in Europe. Find out more about the European Commission report here."

pointofnoreturn

Here's the Clip from Newstalk
The Breakfast Show "Broadband Rollout with Noel Dempsey"

Also, is these European Commission reports public?, where do they publish them. I’d be interested in read the details of their report regarding broadband prices and penetration.

damien

http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/policy/ecomm/implementation_enforcement/annualreports/12threport/index_en.htm

watty

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/04/02/ofcom_broadband_report_07/