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EU to consider universal service law for broadband

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  • 01-10-2008 1:55pm
    #1
    bealtine
    Registered Users Posts: 4,051 ✭✭✭


    EU to consider universal service law for broadband Thursday 25 September 2008

    Th European Commission has started a debate on whether access to broadband services should fall under universal service requirements. This follows the publication of a report evaluating the scope of universal service and penetration of voice and internet services. EC research shows that 7 percent of the EU population still does not have access to broadband services, rising to 30 percent in rural areas. The commission has asked regulators, consumers and market parties to respond to the report with proposals for bringing broadband to everyone in the EU. These contributions will feed into a commission communication in the second half of 2009 and possibly legislative proposals in 2010.


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    #2
    clohamon
    Registered Users Posts: 1,789 ✭✭✭clohamon


    bealtine wrote: »
    EU to consider universal service law for broadband Thursday 25 September 2008

    Th European Commission has started a debate on whether access to broadband services should fall under universal service requirements. .


    I don't think you can just legislate broadband networks into existence if nobody wants to build them.

    If you subsidise a USP to build a network, you get into all the old state aid to industry problems and then you're stuck forever with whichever provider you gave the money to.


    Anyway our USP is due to be reappointed in July 2010 so it probably won't affect us until 2014 at the earliest.


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    #3
    Sponge Bob
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 25,234 ✭✭✭✭Sponge Bob


    Comreg will define Broadband Functional at 0k just like they defined the Internet was functional at 0k in 2003


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    #4
    bealtine
    Registered Users Posts: 4,051 ✭✭✭bealtine


    clohamon wrote: »
    I don't think you can just legislate broadband networks into existence if nobody wants to build them.

    The EU moves slower than your average snail on tranquilizers so don't expect anything any day soon.

    The same "nobody will build them" argument was put out when building the POTS network and only by legislation were the then state owned telcos forced to provide POTS to all.
    Furthermore some states already have this kind of legislation so the EU is only playing catch up.

    I feel that when companies use the "too expensive" routine for essential services what they are really saying is we couldn't be bothered.Which is a very different scenario. As the USP they should be asked nicely to do this or else forced to do it. But then we have a useless regulator that is actually part of the problem rather than part of the solution. I look forward to an EU wide review of regulation to date, now that the banking regulators have utterly failed their consumers, just like the regulation of telcos.


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    #5
    clohamon
    Registered Users Posts: 1,789 ✭✭✭clohamon


    bealtine wrote: »

    The same "nobody will build them" argument was put out when building the POTS network and only by legislation were the then state owned telcos forced to provide POTS to all.


    State ownership is a different case, and I have no problem with that for small countries.


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    #6
    bealtine
    Registered Users Posts: 4,051 ✭✭✭bealtine


    clohamon wrote: »
    State ownership is a different case, and I have no problem with that for small countries.

    and Universal Service Provider isn't ?
    (of course the universal part simply means maybe/perhaps/possibly)

    I personally hope Comreg get abolished for utter and total failure or subsumed into some EU wide regulatory authority. Maybe in the review of regulation that is being called for Comreg can be held up as an example of how useless a regulator can be.


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    #7
    Sponge Bob
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 25,234 ✭✭✭✭Sponge Bob


    Comreg is a European scale DISASTER.

    It deliverately connives and obfuscates to frustrate the true intention of each and every EU directive in its application in Ireland .

    Functional Internet Access = 0k because the previous guaranteed minimum 2.4k was too much .

    The USO directive was published in 2002 and transposed in 2003 . It was not until 2005 that anything was done about FIA when it became 28.8k ( actually ) in Late 2005

    http://www.comreg.ie/whats_new/default.asp?ctype=5&nid=101969

    No enforcement has been done since, lots of crappy pairgains and utterly ****e cabling available nationwide from the USO Carrier , in late 2008 some 6 years later.


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    #8
    Sponge Bob
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 25,234 ✭✭✭✭Sponge Bob


    Comreg is a European scale DISASTER.

    It deliverately connives and obfuscates to frustrate the true intention of each and every EU directive in its application in Ireland .

    Functional Internet Access = 0k because the previous guaranteed minimum 2.4k was too much .

    The USO directive was published in 2002 and transposed in 2003 . It was not until 2005 that anything was done about FIA when it became 28.8k ( actually in Late 2005)

    http://www.comreg.ie/whats_new/default.asp?ctype=5&nid=101969

    No enforcement has been done since, lots of crappy pairgains and utterly ****e cabling available nationwide from the USO Carrier , in late 2008 some 6 years later.

    Discussion from 3.5 years back !

    http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/archive/index.php/t-231899.html


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