ComReg Release USO Decision.

damien

The Commission for Communications Regulation (ComReg) today issued its decision concerning aspects of the Universal Service Obligation (USO) to be met by eircom.

The decision relates to the obligation to provide connections to the public telephone network, the general detail of which is set out in Regulations made by the Minister for Communications, Marine and Natural Resources. Those regulations also permit ComReg, with the consent of the Minister, to set particular requirements in connection with those obligations. In March 2005, ComReg sought views on proposals in relation to requests for connection to the telephone network and on functional Internet access.

ComReg has directed that all connections which involve expenditure of less than €7,000 be provided for the standard connection charge and that where the cost exceeds €7,000 applicants should be able to get service by paying the excess.

On functional Internet access, ComReg has directed eircom to use all reasonable endeavours to ensure a reasonable minimum data rate of 28.8 kbit/s for functional Internet access. Under European legislation, the provision of broadband access is not a feature of the Universal Service Obligation which is confined to a single narrowband connection.

ComReg Commissioner Mike Byrne said:

“Universal service is really all about social inclusion, allowing people in marginal areas or circumstances to avail of basic telecoms services that most of us take for granted. ComReg is grateful to all those who took the time to make submissions during the course of the consultation.

All opinions were considered before we finalised our decision. We believe the requirements and guidelines which we have now issued will be of benefit both to consumers and eircom. They will provide consumers with a clearer idea of what to expect when requesting a telephone connection or when accessing the internet.”

A prominent issue in the views expressed on the consultation was the availability of broadband. While the measures issued today relate only to narrowband (i.e. dial-up) data speeds, ComReg has sought to ensure that the measures do not detract from the priority and investment focused on meeting the national objective in relation to Broadband roll-out.

damien

http://www.comreg.ie/whats_new/default.asp?ctype=5&nid=102142

Loopholes for everyone!

Sponge Bob

useless ***** , 6 months of 'consultation' for nothing

cgarvey

I can lookforward to eircom telling me what "reasonable" is, when I complain iof 9k6-12k dialup speeds, hooray .. another f*ck the consumer from Comreg, thanks.

.cg

Sponge Bob

ƒ

damien

Press Release:

New minimum data rate baby step at a time when leaps are required -
IrelandOffline

Consumer Internet lobbying group IrelandOffline today cautiously welcomed the new ComReg directive[1] on minimum data speeds but warned that stronger directives would be needed to address the massive line failure rates in Ireland. Broadband line failure rates in Ireland stand at 23% in mostly urban locations.[2] In Northern Ireland the failure rate is less than 0.5%

Speaking on the directive IrelandOffline spokesperson Martin Harran stated "IrelandOffline welcome the fact that we at last have a minimum standard after years of our campaigning for one. We are, however, disappointed that the standard is couched in "reasonable endeavours" terminology which puts no real pressure on ercom to bring its lines to an acceptable standard. History has shown that clear unambiguous language is needed for these type of directives to prevent abuse."

Eamonn Wallace Committee member added "Irish Consumers pay the highest line rental in Europe and so should be entitled to far better than this. At these exorbitant line rental charges[3] we should have the best line quality in Europe, yet here we are in 2005 hoping that a year from now 94% of our lines will carry basic modem communications and fax traffic, something we should have had 10 years ago. While the world is moving to broadband, Ireland is only now trying to define a minimum dial-up speed. Although, meant
to be a Universal Service, it will only apply to 94%, and only in a year's time at that, we'd question the use of the term 'Universal'"

In their own submission on the minimum data speed IrelandOffline proposed a requirement that all phone lines would be capable of carrying a broadband signal. This would then address almost all of the 23% of people connected to broadband exchanges who cannot avail of broadband because of poor lines. They further proposed that anyone who's line that did not reach the minimum quality standard should be entitled to a discount or compensation.

Harran stated "In the 1980's, Ireland had a telephone network that was the envy of the rest of the world. Just twenty years on, we have slipped well behind the rest of the world with a network that is still using 1990s technology"

[1] http://www.comreg.ie/whats_new/default.asp?ctype=5&nid=102142

[2] Recent eircom SEC Filing (
http://investorrelations.eircom.net/news/rns_49.htm pg 56) stated that 77% of lines into their ADSL (Broadband) exchanges were actually able to carry broadband. The majority of these exchanges are in urban locations. It is well know that rural lines are in a worse state but no failure rate is available for these.

[3] Irish line rental is the highest in the EU and is 50% higher than the EU average. The next highest line rental in the EU is still €6 cheaper per month.

Jorinn

First of all, "reasonable" is too open to debate, second of all, the inclsion of the word "oftel". Comreg ftw eh?

Jorinn

Oh, and just got in and so on, will go through it more thoroughl once I have the chance.

cgarvey

eircom investors are obviously happy with the decision anyway (which is always a bad sign!!), with shares up 4+% today

NutJob

So looks like Comreg is running around chasing it tail woopie for the next 2 years or so.


Minister Dempsy just has a unique way of makeing a bad situation worse by stickin his head where....Connection lost

Capt'n Midnight

Sponge Bob wrote:

sadly, the original plan to clean up Irish lines a bit so that they all supported a whopping 28.8k by 2012 has now been dropped by Comreg. The plan now is to have 94% capable of 28.8k by June 2006 and **** the rest for ever .

http://www.comreg.ie/whats_new/default.asp?ctype=5&nid=102142

ComReg considers that a target of 94% of lines being capable of FIA compliance by
June 2006 is a reasonable and useful performance target. This will ensure that the
vast majority of lines within the State will be capable of achieving the FIA rate.
However, there may be instances where, despite eircom using all reasonable
endeavours, it will not be possible to achieve the target data rate of 28.8 kbit/s.

So they will have a target of no more than 6% lines to fail at 28.8Kb in the future, compared to the current failure rate of 0.5% in Northern Ireland at ADSL speeds.
http://www.irelandoffline.org/home/article.php?story=20050908004635934

Broadband line failure rates in Ireland stand at 23% in mostly urban locations (see Note #1 below). In Northern Ireland the failure rate is less than 0.5%.

Now need to be careful on the next bit because "ye canna change the laws of physics"

ComReg is of the opinion that it is appropriate to set a minimum set
of standards for a typical consumer line. Where the performance of a line is disputed,
then performance should be measured using the appropriate International
Telecommunications Union standards including but not limited to; ITU-T, G113,
120, 712, Q551 and 552. ComReg intends that arrangements for line testing and
measurement methods will be discussed and agreed with the USP and published
subsequently for the information of end users.

Four of the standards date from 1988 and the other from 1995 giving an average age of 15.6 years. Ok there are updates to the standards and without reading the contents it's hard to decide how to frame it. If the standards relate to SNR then age is irrelevant, if they relate to measurement fairly irrelevant, if they relate to industry best practices and the revisions don't change the basic standard much then yes I feel that we can describe them by their ages.
http://www.itu.int/ITU-T/recommendations/images/menuTreeG-en.html
http://www.itu.int/ITU-T/recommendations/images/menuTreeQ-en.html

Speaking of the ITU I can't find the 28.8Kb V.32 standard for modems !!!!
http://www.itu.int/rec/recommendation.asp?type=products&lang=e&parent=T-REC-V
It because it was upped to 33.6 back in Feburary 1998 http://www.itu.int/rec/recommendation.asp?type=folders&lang=e&parent=T-REC-V.34V.34 : A modem operating at data signalling rates of up to 33 600 bit/s for use on the general switched telephone network and on leased point-to-point 2-wire telephone-type circuitsYes I know the std falls back to 28.8kb, it means that some lines that fail the ITU standard can still pass the Functional test.
v.fast was an intrim Rockwell std for 28.8Kb and that dates from 1993 USR had something similar then too. http://www.data-com-experts.com/modem-dial-up_2-4_wire_lease_line.html

So 1993 is what we are aiming for, mostly.

Interesting to note is that due to mobile coverage I'd reckon that more urban lines will be cancelled than rural ones and fewer new homes in urban areas will bother with phone for voice only. So the 6% target could actually become more difficult to achieve as time goes by !

one
respondent suggested that an acceptable SNR level would be 30dB. Another
respondent commented that SNR levels are used by the US Federal Communications
Commission6, and that adequate cabling must be introduced, at no cost to consumers
in order to comply with an acceptable SNR level.

SNR 30dB = 3B = 10^3=1000 distinguishable levels
1024 = 10 bits. 3000 baud x 10 bits = 30,000 bit per second.
3000 baud is a hard limit of analog voice only lines because of the equipment.
Interesting because it would seem to be fairly easy to measure and very unambiguous.

Flight of fancy time

ComReg considers that a target of 94% of lines being capable of FIA compliance by
June 2006 is a reasonable and useful performance target.

just re-read this, it's inspired. So they could argue that they only need to be able to show that they could upgrade the lines not actually have to do it.

Sponge Bob

Capt'n Midnight wrote:

Just re-read this, it's inspired. So they could argue that they only need to be able to show that they could upgrade the lines not actually have to do it.

And Comreg will rely entirely on data supplied by Eircom as to Eircoms ' compliance '. They will not undertake any measurements themselves , ever .

Comreg also originally proposed getting 100% of lines up to v34 standard (28.8k 1994) by 2012 but dropped that onerous target in favour of 94% by 2006 and feck the rest basically .

They never looked at the v34.bis standard at all (33.6k 1996 or 1997) , that would be too high tech....even by 2012

A USO is not a USO if 6% of lines (and more according to the Cap'N if urban lines are terminated to a greater extent than rural ) are excluded.

U means "Universal" after all and 94% is not Universal. I would have been perfectly happy with a "Universal" defined as one proper line per premises and pairgain the rest if necessary but no......Comreg couldn't stomach that one either.