Tycom may bring network to State

dahamsta

http://scripts.ireland.com/technology/newsshowall.cfm?ID=%201906

adam

LegacyUser

so what does it mean, im guessign they wont be providing a home service here, more like providing the backbone to isps?
wil lwe have a state like america were bandwidth is dirth cheap, what will this mean for eircon caps

[This message has been edited by Gladiator (edited 11-08-2001).]

LegacyUser

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The State has virtually no competition on regional fibre routes, controlled by Esat/BT and Eircom, and prices here are among the highest in the world.
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Does Esat rent its fibre, or keep it to itself?
I presume Eircom is obliged to rent its.

LegacyUser

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Neville:
Does Esat rent its fibre, or keep it to itself?
I presume Eircom is obliged to rent its.</font>

Erm, these companies install fibre in order to rent it out. Some telcos tried hoarding their fibre in the past, and not renting it to anybody, but I hear it had a negative impact on their sales.


[This message has been edited by hudson806 (edited 12-08-2001).]

LegacyUser

I was thinking in terms of OLO's. Did Esat install capacity based primarily on their own retail requirements? or were they actively looking to compete with Eircom for OLO business? to the extent of becoming the dominant supplier on regional routes?
The article seemed to suggest a nice little duopoly, with each player fairly happy with their market share and neither really looking to upset the applecart.
Granted, I may be reading too much into the couple of lines quoted, but thats how it struck me and why I was looking for a bit more detail.

LegacyUser

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Neville:
I was thinking in terms of OLO's. Did Esat install capacity based primarily on their own retail requirements? or were they actively looking to compete with Eircom for OLO business?
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I don't really get what you're talking about by 'compete with Eircom for OLO business'. What sort of OLO business are you referring to? Essentially, Esat or Eircom will sell space on their pipes to whoever is willing to pay for them, without caring what the buyer places on it. They aren't really 'services' in the retail sense.

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The article seemed to suggest a nice little duopoly, with each player fairly happy with their market share and neither really looking to upset the applecart.
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There definitely is. Thats part of the reason I find it irritating when people fall for Esat's crap about being on the side of the consumer and whatnot.


[This message has been edited by hudson806 (edited 12-08-2001).]

LegacyUser

As I see it (tell me if I'm wrong ) East could decide to lay enough fibre to meet the needs of their own retail (phone and ISP) arms, and a bit more. Thereby removing their own dependency on Eircom. But their own retail arms remain their main customers.
And other retail OLO's are disadvantaged by having to pay inflated prices. It's definitely an option I'd consider in their place.

Or they could decide to drive a horse and four through Eircom's regional fibre business and build and price a network aimed at winning most of the new business and attracting existing business away from Eircom. In which case their retail arms are just a starting point in terms of wholesale income, but the retail arms are competing on a much leveler playing field.

This is is one of the reasons I dislike the 20% market share trigger for opening access to OLO's. Esat gets to have a different set of rules than its competitors without fibre. I'm not saying they do, just that they can (I'd like to know though). I'd prefer timeouts. Like patents but over shorter timespans. It would force Esat into the second option as the first would be impossible once exclusivity ran out. The risk is that nobody would build fibre except Eircom, but I think its a fairly low risk. More likely that we would get wholesale only operations as opposed to wholesale/retail combos.

Anyway. Option 1 was what I suspected from the article, but I may be missing some vital info.

LegacyUser

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Neville:
As I see it (tell me if I'm wrong ) East could decide to lay enough fibre to meet the needs of their own retail (phone and ISP) arms, and a bit more.</font>

Nah. Esat's retail arm currently generates about 5p a year in revenue. The reason any of these companies is laying fibre is to attract large companies willing to buy big chunks of service (from 2mb circuits to STM-4s) for point-to-point connections. Some of them may even choose to terminate the connections with the OLO that sold it to them - so much the better.

Remember that almost all of Esat's retail voice and Internet calls are carried entirely on Eircom's network. With that in mind, it wouldn't make much sense to lay the fibre unless it was for the sort of people who want high-capacity connections (OLOs, big businesses and their retail arm).

I'm not sure the idea of timeouts makes a whole lot of sense either. There is no reason why a small company which owns a small piece of fibre should be forced to give it up after a specified period of time.

Personally, I think your philosophy in general is wrong (no offence). There is a real need for very simple, very transparent and very economically rational rules in the industry, mostly because all of these companies are willing to drag things through the courts until they either get what they want or put the other companay out of business. Making arbitrary rules about serving unprofitable exchanges before profitable ones (the 'you have to serve the exchange 2 miles away from your current one' rule), or forcing small companies to open up fibre that hasn't paid for itself yet is just plain wrong.

Certainly, you have to have faith that if the local loop is unbundled, everone will eventually have broadband services (though not necessarily over the local loop). Those people who live in outlying areas will, unfortunately, be the last to get it, but that's a reflection of the harsh reality that any company will serve the most profitable area first, and try as you may to distort that, it will only make a mess of it.

All IMHO, of course.

[This message has been edited by hudson806 (edited 12-08-2001).]

LegacyUser

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by hudson806:
Remember that almost all of Esat's retail voice and Internet calls are carried entirely on Eircom's network.
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OK, I thought they only used Eircom to get from the phone to their nearest fibre.

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There is no reason why a small company which owns a small piece of fibre should be forced to give it up after a specified period of time.
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Its still theirs, and they get paid if an OLO uses it. But they are prevented from withholding it from the market as a barrier to entry/cost advantage for service competition. Be the company big or small, I think thats a good principle. I am presuming of course that the timeout is longer than the time taken to recoup investment.

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Personally, I think your philosophy in general is wrong (no offence).
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No offence taken. I've no objection to my ideas being knocked down by reasoned arguments. It won't stop me refining them or thinking up new ones . And someone else may come up with better ideas. But until all areas of provision (from international links to LL installation) have real competition I don't think the ODTR's job is done, and will say so, and propose ideas for fixing it.

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There is a real need for very simple, very transparent and very economically rational rules in the
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Transparent and economically rational definitely. But make a thing as simple as it can be and no simpler. If simple rules don't achieve the desired result, they need refining or replacing.

Unbundling is essential, but unless Eircom has real competition in provisioning, then we will be relying on SLA's that force Eircom to upgrade their network when an OLO requests it (AFAIK). Those SLA's are likely to be every bit as complex if not more so than any regulation I dream up.

And when I dream up these ideas, I try to build in triggers for the OLO's so that Eircom has less excuse to adopt a "them vs us" stance, since in certain scenarios they would be classed as the OLO.

Principles I try to stick to are:
1) Open established infrastructure immediately.
2) Open new infrastructure as quickly as economically viable.
3) Lower or equalise entry costs, prevent existing operators establishing barriers to entry.

Anyway, I didn't intend this to turn into a philosophical debate , but if after (how many?) years of fibre liberalisation, we have only moved from monopoly to duopoly, I reckon the rules need revisiting.