Irish Times - eircom will not challenge flat rate directive

Scottish

On the front page of the Irish Times biz section - very small paragraph. Good news though.

MDR

makes me nervous ... whats going on

Internet minutes means a huge amount of revenue for them,
if they don't challenge it at this earily stage it either means,
the DOC have em over a barrell, or they are grossily incompetent, or they have something up their sleeve ...

JohnK

Sounds good. Does this mean we could get flatrate b4 june now?

Dangger

It means they are simply going to wait until the price is announced by ComReg before they try to spoil the party.

Scottish

Heres some of the content from the small article:

"Eircom Accepts Internet Ruling

Eircom will not appeal the COMREG directive forcing it to introduce a flat-rate internet product .

eircom said it could have appealed the decision, but it has decided to work constructively with the regulator."

Good news, but I think they may have decided to try and get influence over the price.

GoneShootin

they are grossily incompetent

thats the safe bet

spongebob

Originally posted by Scottish
Heres some of the content from the small article:

"Eircom Accepts Internet Ruling

Eircom will not appeal the COMREG directive forcing it to introduce a flat-rate internet product .

eircom said it could have appealed the decision, but it has decided to work constructively with the regulator."

The Directive ..as such...came from the Minister TO Comreg, the consultation period finished last friday.

The Decision ..as such...came from the Comreg TO Eircom although they overlapped a tad but lets leave that a mo, this is still under consultation. It contains a Number of individual directives but is known in its entirety as the Decision and not as the Directive.

Eircom did not publicly say Whether they would co-operate on the Decision see the Decision here......... which, after all, is the Important bit. I checked again, still nothing.

If Eircom are co-operating with Comreg are they accepting All 11 Directions (directives if you wish) in the Decision and if they accept all 11 are they going to expedite the introduction ......say before June 2003

In fact by not explicitly saying that they Would co-operate they leave me in no doubt that they will head for the High Court but will wait till Comreg play out a load of the Comreg cards.

There is no press release on the Eircom site as I edit this.

M

De Rebel

Originally posted by Muck

Decision and Directive are as arse is to elbow

(will ENN lift this /me wonders?) [/B]

According to an industry insider.................

De Rebel

Originally posted by Scottish
Good news, but I think they may have decided to try and get influence over the price.

The do more than influence the price. They set the FRIACO wholesale price. This has a very direct relationship on the retail flat rate price.

Its obvious that fighting "the decision" would have led to public odium being heaped on them. I'd see that as a recognition of the job done by IOFFL over the last few months. Eircom realises that the mood of the Minister, ComReg, Media, is changing. So no public battles of the principal of the thing (the decision).

Expect them to take a major stand on the price issue though. They have already won the first round, by eliminating Single Tandem FRIACO from the decision. Expect all the usual bleeding heart stuff about network capacity concerns etc etc all of which will be usd to justify the highest FRIACO wholesale price in the known world.

ando

eircom said it could have appealed the decision, but it has decided to work constructively with the regulator."

now I know somethings up ..... This has gotta be a joke

seamus

quote:

---

eircom said it could have appealed the decision, but it has decided to work constructively with the regulator."

---

now I know somethings up ..... This has gotta be a joke

Yes indeed.....

They may try to push the 'unlimited' evening time access -
ie unlimited access offpeak = €30
unlimited access at all times = €60

I wouldn't put it past them at all. In fact, I'd assume that's hwta they're trying to do.

Scottish

I'd agree - would think they are playing good guy, in order to get into position on price. They can't hold back the tide, so they will try and set the high water mark

skrobe

Maybe, as i mentioned b4, esat have some kind of a barganing hold on eircom with the thier 2 million Euro(?) court case against them? Could esat be about to drop it for some move on reasonable prices for FRIACO.!!
j

Cork

Who determines the price for FAIRCO?
Will Eircom accept it?


If they accept COMREG Flat Rate directive - Why were they dragging their heals on the issue?

De Rebel

Originally posted by Cork
Who determines the price for FAIRCO?
Will Eircom accept it?


If they accept COMREG Flat Rate directive - Why were they dragging their heals on the issue?

Eircom decide on the wholesale FRIACO price and notify ComReg and the OLOs, who can then either accept it or ............

According to the schedule set out in the ComReg Decision notice, Eircom have until 24th February to advise the price.

Fergus

Eircom will just come up with a rediculous wholesale price from FRIACO, like they did for LLU and DSL. I would be surprised if we don't see the usual ComReg/eircom drawn out dispute on the price not being LRIC based, starting end of Feb. Normally takes about 6-12 months doesn't it before they reach an 'agreement' on a still rediculous wholesale price.

If this doesn't happen, and Eircom come up with a FRIACO price in line with BT in the UK, then all their other wholesale prices will be seriously out of step.

Remember all the luvvy duvvy criticism-reflecting sh1te we were fed by eircom at the IOffL 'Net Imperative' seminar in Aug 2001 about how everything was fine cos DSL was coming the following month.. the one thing they wouldn't mention was the price.

eircomtribunal

Originally posted by Scottish

eircom said it could have appealed the decision, but it has decided to work constructively with the regulator."

Probably as constructively as on the issue of the single telephone bill.

From the ComReg docs:
In the light of market developments, D13/02 directed eircom to propose, by the end of September 2002, product descriptions for CPS Single Billing Products ... and to implement these products by the end of January 2003. ..
There is considerable interest in such products from consumers and industry alike as their implementation means that customers currently availing of CPS can opt to receive a single bill for their telephony rental, calls and other ancillary services. It is perceived that the current dual billing arrangements may provide eircom with an advantage in attempting to win-back customers, or may even act as a deterrent to those contemplating switching.
To assist in the speedy implementation of these products, the ODTR gathered the industry requirements and presented these to eircom as a list of essential features to be included in the product descriptions. eircom responded with product descriptions by the due date of 30th September 2002, however they were incomplete and omitted many of the essential features and much of the detail required for fully conforming product descriptions. The ODTR required eircom to make substantial amendments to these descriptions and revised versions were presented on 16th October 2002. These were still incomplete but in the interests of making progress, the ODTR convened the CPS industry forum to initiate discussion.
The industry raised similar concerns to the ODTR and discussions continued at forum and through bi-laterals in an effort to progress the product descriptions. The ODTR wrote to eircom on the 20th of November 2002 to express continued dissatisfaction. Some but limited progress was made following a meeting held on 22nd November 2002. However at a meeting of 6th December 2002, the OLOs indicated that the products were not fit for purpose and requested that ComReg review the product definition and timetable.
On December 10th, ComReg, intervening on its own initiative, wrote to eircom to direct the inclusion or amendment of thirteen specific items, set out in later in this paper. eircom were directed to respond by 18th December and by 23rd December on a number of the elements.
eircom responded by the due dates and ComReg is pleased to note that the amended product descriptions are now in accordance with the ComReg directions. However in light of the limited progress made to date, the amount time that has already passed and the complexity of the issues still to be addressed, eircom and the OLOs have requested that the launch date for the products be revised. This Decision Notice sets a revised completion date of 30th April 2003.

Do I remember Etain Doyle publicly mocking NTL for "falsely" citing the lack of progress on the single billing issue as one of the reasons for pulling out of the telephone market in Ireland?

Eircom managed to knock out another quarter of a year on the billing issue - wonder about the FRIACO business.

SkepticOne

Thing I would look out for would be spurious non-essential additions to the FRIACO product and adding to the cost.

De Rebel

Originally posted by SkepticOne
Thing I would look out for would be spurious non-essential additions to the FRIACO product and adding to the cost.

Thing I would look out for is a high wholesale price

SkepticOne

Thing I would look out for also.

aidan_dunne

Originally posted by eircomtribunal
Eircom managed to knock out another quarter of a year on the billing issue - wonder about the FRIACO business.

Agreed. It's just another weapon in Eircom's massive arsenal of ways to draw out the introduction of services. Don't be surprised if we see Eircom try this tactic when it comes to FRIACO, i.e. submitting a half-assed, incomplete, badly thought out pricing structure to ComReg which will lead to ComReg having to give Eircom more time to do a proper job of it. And then we'll see probably see objections, court cases, etc., etc. Anything, anything at all that will delay the introduction of flat-rate so Eircom can continue milking the per-minute pricing structure for that little bit longer.