ODTR to relax Eircom's price cap, according to reports

dahamsta

ENN

The Office of the Director of Telecommunications Regulation (ODTR) is expected to announce that it has relaxed the controversial price cap on Eircom's retail telecom services, according to Business & Finance magazine. Senior sources in a number of telecommunications companies have indicated that they expect Eircom's prices to be linked in future to the consumer price index. The decision is likely to get a mixed reception from Eircom's competitors; Esat BT has lobbied for the abolition of the price cap, while smaller operators have said that abolishing it would give Eircom carte blanche to increase prices where it has a near monopoly.

ednwireland

Well the gov's allowed everyone else to put their prices up so why not eircon (vhi,esb,rte?, insurance cartel etc etc etc)
this isn't news nor is it suprising
it's c. mcreevy's way of covering the huge increases in taxation and massive cuts in spending he's about to inflict

Lemming

Baaaad karma ....

Meh

Originally posted by ednwireland
Well the gov's allowed everyone else to put their prices up so why not eircon (vhi,esb,rte?, insurance cartel etc etc etc)
this isn't news nor is it suprising
it's c. mcreevy's way of covering the huge increases in taxation and massive cuts in spending he's about to inflict

Well, the point of the price cap was to get Eircom to streamline their operations. Eircom are a massively inefficient company -- I think their "phone lines per employee" ratio is one of the lowest in Europe. With the price cap, they were encouraged to work harder/smarter or lay off unnecessary employees. Without the price cap, they can just use their monopoly to gouge more money out of you and me and not make any tough decisions about layoffs.

Edit -- lowest not highest

java

Not with you Meh. Whats "phone lines per employee ratio" ?

jd

Originally posted by java
Not with you Meh. Whats "phone lines per employee ratio" ?

Exactly what it says..
If there are 1.5 million lines in ireland, and eircom has 10,000 employees then thr ratio is 150:1.
It's a quick and dirt measurement of efficiency.
It doesn't tell the whole story. eg there are plans to hive off eircoms it department. If this has 800 employees than the rtatio rises to 163:1 when its divested. It's debatable if the efficiency of the operation has actually increased. It has if IT costs come down...

b4k4^2

Would this be what you're on about?
Taken from the business section of today's Irish Independant.