The Irish Times Business This Week Supplement, Friday, June 28, 2002

Bios

I had to type this out so please excuse any mistakes. Also these are only parts of the articles.

Regulator to force Eircom to allow users choice of line rental company
by Jamie Smyth

Customers will be able to rent telecoms lines from phone companies other than Eircom shortly in a move by the regulator to revitalise competition in the residential market.

Ms Etain Doyle, the telecoms regulator, is expected to issue a direction within the next week forcing Eircom to offer competitors a wholesale line rental product that the firms will be able to use to encourage customers to sign up for services.

The decision will remove the need for customers who sign up for alternative providers to pay two separate telephone bills - one for calls and one for line rental - a factor blamed for low take-up of alternative carriers. Currently customers who sign up to a competing firm, such as Esat or Swifcall, must pay their line rental to eircom and make a separate payment to the competing firm for telephone calls.

........

It is believed the telecoms regulator will move quickly to force Eircom to offer the wholesale line rental product to spur
competition. But it is expected it will take at least three months to determine the right pricing for the offer.

The move in the Republic follows a similar decision in Britain taken recently by industry regulator Oftel, which will introduce a wholesale offering within four months at a fee of £28 sterling(43 euro) per quarter for competitors.

Shares in British Telecom fell following the decision and it is likely Eircom will face tougher competition for residential customers in the future.

Government All at sea over role of e-minister
by Karlin Lillington

It's official: the Government views its kinda, sorta e-minister as an unimportant, window-dressing role, a bland concession to industry demands rather than a visionary new appointment.

Sure the Taoiseach hasn't made a formal statement to this effect but he really doesn't have to. Actions, as always, speak much more louder than words. Not that there have been many words, either. The announcement by MR Ahern of a new minister of State role in the Department of the Taoiseach for the information society was so vaguely phrased that no one in the technology industry - and few civil servants - seemed sure that this was the crucial position of e-minister.

Since the appointment - three weeks on! - there have been no words whatsoever emanating from the Taoiseach's Department on what this role actually is and what its real responsibilities will be.

.......

So the Taoiseach seems to have decided to underline the indifference and scepticism he apparently holds for the very idea of an e-minister by loading on to Ms Hanafin as broad and unrelated a range of responsibilities as possible. Just to make sure she doesn't spend too much time on that information society thing.

.......

They (senior leaders in the technology industry) fear the state's citizens will fail to gain from the social benefits of broad and energetic e-government initiatives. They worry that schoolchildren will enter university and the workplace without the skills and familiarity with computers and the internet that they will need in coming decades, making them second-rate employees. And finally, they grow more convinced that, at the current rate, the Stat's technology infrastructure will soon be inadequate to maintain - much less increase - our economic competitiveness.

Few other things that have been going on in me head

1. Do you think that the odd report(ie positve ) from ODTR a while ago might be something to do with Etain Doyle wanting the job as chairperson of the new commission that is due to regulate the market in Ireland?

2. I have no idea what the Nice treaty is about, personally i think this is the reason it failed the last time.Will the Nice treaty have any effect on the telecoms market or motor insurance in ireland?

3. I have isdn and live in galway. The last 2 days, if i dialup using eircom, i cannot view boards.ie at all. If i use oceanfree its fine. Anyone else getting this?

4. Ireland is now the second biggest bunch of pissheads in europe! Well done folks!!! (luxembourg is the first but if we try hard enuff we will get em next year )

Adam

aidan_dunne

Firstly, if this wholesale line rental product is launced who here are going to change their carrier over to Esat, just out of curiousity? To be honest, just to pi$$ Eircom off and show them that we mean business I think we all should but, let's face it, Esat can be just as bad when it comes to running their company. Also, after the No Limits debacle, I know a lot of people felt they would never use an Esat service again and I have to admit that I would feel a bit two-faced switching to them after the whole No Limits thing. Who else would feel the same? Seems to me that one is as bad as the other so what should we do?

Secondly, will this have any effect in speeding up the introduction of a FRIACO product?

Thirdly, you can bet your a$$ Bios that all these sudden moves by Etian lately have something to do with her looking for the chairmanship of the commission. She seems to have suddenly done more in the last couple of weeks than she did in the past couple of years so she's obviously trying to swing things her way and make it look like she's able to regulate properly and is a capable person for the job!

Fourthly Bios, I have had the same kinds of problems with Eircom's dial-up. Do you think Eircom suddenly realise what a force IOFFL are becoming and are trying to prevent us from going to the forum where we all hatch our "evil plans" to take down Eircom?

dahamsta

I'll be switching, although it won't be to Esat. Unless, of course, they come up with something of value in the meantime.

That's a hint by the way.

adam

aidan_dunne

Originally posted by dahamsta
I'll be switching, although it won't be to Esat. Unless, of course, they come up with something of value in the meantime.

That's a hint by the way.

adam

A hint, adam? That "hint" had flat-rate plastered all over it! lol. If we can see straight through it and know what you're talking about it's a pity the gob$hites in Esat and Eircom (Eircom in particular!) can't see it!

Dr.Seagull

apart from eircom and esat what other carriers are there?

hunkypex

Id change but not to esat, after no limits. I just can't and won't keep abreast of the complexities of their "spirit" world.

Dustaz

I would change to whoever has the best products available. Simple as that. At this moment in time i have absolutly no reason to switch to esat - they dont offer flat rate or broadband.
If they introduced a cheaper broadband solution than i-stream, id switch as soon as was humanly possible.

dahamsta

Well, I'd take broadband if any-bloody-body offered it to me, but since Hettyfield doesn't seem to be very attractive to the telco's, it looks like I'm shot out of luck. I saw some construction work going on down there the other day, but I think it was next door. *sob*

On changing to Esat - and by the way, that wasn't a hint for you lot Aidan, it was a hint for Esat - like I said, I'd change if Esat were offering something of value. Flat-rate would obviously clinch it, but partial flat-rate mightn't, because I would have to balance the savings against the convenience of ISDN. Of course, if Esat decided to innovate and offer a flat-rate ISDN package...

The line rental thing is critical to the development of the market though, I hope there won't be any last-minute writs from Eircom about it.

adam

ando

I wonder. Currently I'm 5Km away from my exchange using eircom's line.... would it be possable to get esat to shorten the distance if i got a new line off them ? Take a different route ? (i'm 3km away driving)

dahamsta

I wonder. Currently I'm 5Km away from my exchange using eircom's line.... would it be possable to get esat to shorten the distance if i got a new line off them ? Take a different route ? (i'm 3km away driving)

Technically, maybe, but I very much doubt Esat will be very accomodating at this stage of the game.

adam

m1ke

id switch to esat right away tbh. The dsl package they're offering is superior to eircoms. Because eircom are the only operators in my area atm I can't get their dsl product it's cap is too limiting and its uncapped version too highly priced. Also their level of service has been abysmal. Only 2 weeks ago I spent several days trying to convince them to come out and fix my isdn line. They ran tests from their office and assured me it had to be a problem my end. Several days later when the engineer arrives he discovers i've been disconnected accidentally even though my bill has been paid in full. He reconnects me. For my inconvience - going without the net for 4 days even though my bill has been fully payed im charged 45 euro for reconnection. tossers.

Dr.Seagull

iv heard of alot of ppl who have been disconnected even though they paid there bill on time and never asked to be disconnect
eircom: conspiracy or complete idiots??

Bios

5. Why are the government listening to forfas about the cost of living and completely ignoring them regarding the report on telecoms & internet?

Adam

timod

Originally posted by Bios
3. I have isdn and live in galway. The last 2 days, if i dialup using eircom, i cannot view boards.ie at all. If i use oceanfree its fine. Anyone else getting this?
[/B]

I'm using dialup in Cork with Indigo, and I found the same on Friday. Traceroutes terminated in Dublin.... prolly a dodgy Eircom router. It wasn't just boards though, a few other sites too. Seems fine now though.

SkepticOne

The government says Mary Hanafin is our new e-minister. She's not. She's the government chief whip. Then she's a minister of state in the Department of Defence. And then she's a minister of state in the Department of the Taoiseach with responsibility for the "information society".

So when she's finished getting troublesome backbenchers to toe the line, when she's through coordinating the state's legislative agenda, when she's done overseeing defence budgets, then maybe she'll have time to look at Ireland's e-society strategy.

Full article here.