Seminar Q&A - Second Guessing

LegacyUser

postal order is off in todays post, so mark me down as coming

LegacyUser

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by DarkSide:
The government should never have allowed the national infrastructure to pass into private hands. They should have seperated it from Telecom Eireann when it stopped being a state body. That is the only way that this current mess could have been avoided.</font>

This is one approach and if you are forced to have essentially one local-loop infrastructure it is the way to go. Basically, Eircom, Esat, Sprint would be on an equal footing renting lines from a state controlled body. I think it would work fairly well.

The other approach would have been to encourage genuine competition prior to privatisation i.e. subsidise the building of alternative infrastructure. You would have needed to subsidise it because Ireland is such a small market and there might not be much interest in investing here. The situation with the capital markets at the moment means that these subsidies would need to be even higher. The advantage with the second approach is that competition would encourage innovation over the various competing infrastructures.

What we have is a weak mixture of the two. On the one hand we have the poorly regulated encumbent and the nearest we have in genuine competition with them are underfunded cable companies with exclusive licences to re-transmit UK channels but no obligation to provide competition to the encumbent.

In the case of NTL, they are currently diverting their resources away from telecoms and internet towards digital TV in order to meet the terms of their licence. This was not meant to happen. They were supposed to have committed to provide competition to Eircom.

The fact that the encumbent is regulated and is supposed to allow access to it's local lines discourages competitors from building their own lines whilst at the same time the weakness of this regulation allows to encumbent to stall the process.

A big mess.

[This message has been edited by Skeptic1 (edited 22-08-2001).]

LegacyUser

Maybe it's time to call all the current arrangements into question. Clearly identify the policy mistakes that have been made to date.

The fact that internet access isn't a condition of the NTL licence I think is I mistake.

Maybe the granting of such long exclusive licence periods (i.e. to 2003/4) was a mistake.

You would think there must be an advisory body doing this sort of analysis to guide public policy. Is there?

LegacyUser

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by infomat:
We the public in Ireland are also to blame ... we as a nation are reluctant to complain about poor service, being ripped-off etc. Why has it taken until now for an organisation such as Ireland Offline to arise?
</font>

Critical mass? As the ISP survey has shown, many people are happy enough with their dial-up, but.. isn't that a case of "they know what they like and they like what they know"

LegacyUser

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Skeptic1:

Originally posted by DarkSide:
The government should never have allowed the national infrastructure to pass into private hands. They should have seperated it from Telecom Eireann when it stopped being a state body. That is the only way that this current mess could have been avoided.</font>

In the case of NTL, they are currently diverting their resources away from telecoms and internet towards digital TV in order to meet the terms of their licence. This was not meant to happen. They were supposed to have committed to provide competition to Eircom.

(1) I do not believe that it was intended that NTL should provide competition for Eircom.

(2) I am pleased to learn that they are now concentrating on offering Digital TV. If they continued with their original plan I would have been obliged to wait 3 to 5 years for Digital TV as there are no alternatives available (I cannot install a dish for technical and planning reasons). As far as I am concerned Internet Access is a different battle.

(3) I feel that the Government should have retained the infrastructure but that may not have been a practical option.

LegacyUser

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by infomat:
(1) I do not believe that it was intended that NTL should provide competition for Eircom.
</font>

I find that a bit hard to believe, given that they sell TV, telephone and internet as a package.

LegacyUser

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Fergus:
I find that a bit hard to believe, given that they sell TV, telephone and internet as a package.</font>

Is this not a recent development?
When RTE were forced to unload their interest in Cablelink there was no requirement that CableLink should develop as a competitor for Eircom ... there was no obligation (actual or implied) on them to offer anything other than a television distribution service which must include certain channels (such as RTE, TG4, etc.).

The fact that they now offer some limited telephone and Internet services does not imply any intent that they should offer competition to Eircom.

LegacyUser

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by infomat:
(1) I do not believe that it was intended that NTL should provide competition for Eircom.</font>

The purpose of selling cablelink (jointly owned by RTE and Telecom Eireinn) was to end the then Telecom Eireinn local loop monopoly . From Noel Treacy, T.D.

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Now looking at the trends in Ireland, I have some tremendous hope and aspiration, yet some prevailing concerns. The commitment to deregulation of the telecommunications market as witnessed by the proposed sale of Cablelink and the early ending of the "local loop" monopoly by Telecom will ensure that the important recommendations of the Information Society report and the Commission are positively acted upon.</font>

It was one of the National Competivness Council's recommendations:

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">An early sell-off of Cablelink to a company that would invest significantly in its development for the provision of broadband and compete strongly with other telecom operators using the Cablelink frastructure.
</font>

And indeed, after the sale went ahead, it was understood that there were conditions attached:

Department of Enterprise Trade and Employment :

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">The sale of Cablelink has been completed subject to an upgrade of the network to provide broadband services</font>

Mary O'Rourke TD, Minister for Public Enterprise:

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">The sale must entail a commitment by the purchaser to upgrade the Cablelink network to a state of the art multi-media platform with third party access. This platform will enable Cablelink to become an important provider of a range of advanced multi-media services including digital television, internet, telephony, and value added services such as data services, messaging, video on demand, video conferencing and interactive services such as home shopping and home banking.</font>

The above was coppied to an earlier reply here. Links to the original documents can also be found on that page.

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">(2) I am pleased to learn that they are now concentrating on offering Digital TV. If they continued with their original plan I would have been obliged to wait 3 to 5 years for Digital TV as there are no alternatives available (I cannot install a dish for technical and planning reasons). As far as I am concerned Internet Access is a different battle.</font>

I'm glad you're happy with the current arrangements.

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">(3) I feel that the Government should have retained the infrastructure but that may not have been a practical option.
</font>

I agree that this should have been the case however decent competition to Eircom's local loop would also have helped.




[This message has been edited by Skeptic1 (edited 23-08-2001).]

LegacyUser

Ok, one thing I found in the past is the talk by the government of brining Ireland online by putting cables, etc. even to the most remote areas (not that I think this will happen, at least not any time soon), to avoid the social split. Hmm... I live in Midelton/Cork and I saw a map of the lines going through here. That particular town seems to sit on a crossroad and heavy bandwidth are going through. Grand! Did anyone in the government ever think about how someone gets access to this bandwidth?

What I'm saying in short is, it is not just important to implement the infrastructure but also the means to access just the same. Its something that could be brought forward at the conference.

There was an article a few days back in the Irish Times regarding connectivity of research facilities. The bandwidth there is extremely bad (what else is new) compared to the rest of the world, keeping researchers in Ireland from participating in global projects. The thing there is, that the infrastructure for these are owned by the government and buying them from those who have them is extremely dear compared to other countries, which by itself is another interesting aspect.

Maybe someone can find this article online, as it was quite interesting.

Cheers, Marco...

LegacyUser

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Skeptic1:
The above was copied to an earlier reply here. Links to the original documents can also be found on that page.

(2) I am pleased to learn that they are now concentrating on offering Digital TV. If they continued with their original plan I would have been obliged to wait 3 to 5 years for Digital TV as there are no alternatives available (I cannot install a dish for technical and planning reasons). As far as I am concerned Internet Access is a different battle.</font>

I'm glad you're happy with the current arrangements.

[b

Thanks for your very useful response to my earlier postings.

Your message certainly shows that I was incorrect regarding NTL’s brief regarding offering competition to EIRCOM. The divergence between expectations and the current reality is very depressing. It would appear that NTL have performed even worse than Eircom.

I did not intend to convey the impression that I was happy with current arrangements … I am not at all happy. My point was that rather than being forced to wait three years for both Internet Access and Digital TV from NTL I would prefer to get Digital TV before than Christmas if this is the result of a change of focus at NTL. I have no alternative to NTL when it comes to Digital TV but in the case of Internet Access there are likely to be a number of options within the next three to six months.

LegacyUser

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by infomat:

Originally posted by Skeptic1:
Your message certainly shows that I was incorrect regarding NTL?s brief regarding offering competition to EIRCOM. The divergence between expectations and the current reality is very depressing. It would appear that NTL have performed even worse than Eircom.</font>

Sadly, even though the purpose of the sale was to encourage competition with Eircom, the ODTR did not write this into their licence obligations.

NTL now have an exclusive licence to provide re-broadcasted TV. In return for this exclusivity they have an obligation to provide digital TV but not two-way services which was the purpose of the forced sale. Very odd!

I do regard the sale, even without the obligation, as a good thing. This is because there was no way that cablelink, being part owned by Eircom, would have introduced two-way cablemodems competing with Eircom's core products.

These competition issues have never really been understood well in this country. As late as the early 90's the Government actually faught and obtained a derrogation against an EU directive to deregulate the telecomms market in EU states on the basis that Irelands ifrastructure was not sufficiently advanced. It was only in 1998 (possibly under pressure by the WTO) that they realised that this was perhaps not a good idea! Up until that point, not only all traditional telephone services were in the hands of one body, but a major cable company and potential competitor, was actually owned by this organisation.

LegacyUser

The total bandwidth of connectivity out of Ireland now exceeds 1 megabit/second for every man, woman and child.

I think Eircom's latest efforts to promote internet use at home seems to underline that their belief is that the demand isn't really there. It's kinda hard to understand.

What worries me though.. the government probably pays more attention to what Eircom tells them about how things should be, than say the likes of us. That's scary.


[This message has been edited by Fergus (edited 23-08-2001).]

LegacyUser

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Cariarer:


There was an article a few days back in the Irish Times regarding connectivity of research facilities. The bandwidth there is extremely bad (what else is new) compared to the rest of the world, keeping researchers in Ireland from participating in global projects. The thing there is, that the infrastructure for these are owned by the government and buying them from those who have them is extremely dear compared to other countries, which by itself is another interesting aspect.

Maybe someone can find this article online, as it was quite interesting.

Cheers, Marco...</font>

http://scripts.ireland.com/search/highlight.plx?TextRes=heanet&Path=/newspaper/finance/2001/0817/fin21.htm

LegacyUser

Maybe we should call this seminar 'The Harran Tribunal'

LegacyUser

I really hope Eircom aren't thinking they're gonna use this seminar as a media platform to push their mouse fluff campaign.

sceptre

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Fergus:
I really hope Eircom aren't thinking they're gonna use this seminar as a media platform to push their mouse fluff campaign.</font>

If they do, I'll be the guy towards the back singing "Rat Trap".

LegacyUser

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by sceptre:

If they do, I'll be the guy towards the back singing "Rat Trap".</font>

Not bad.. not bad.. at least then the press can report that Eircom had to face the music!

LegacyUser

The one point above all that worried me was that the "Rep's" from different companies would waste time by waffling on like politicians. It was therefore most reassuring to read the post by Martin as follows:

quote:

---

There's been a slight change in the arrangements - I will now be chairing the Q&A session and believe me, I have a very low tolerance level for waffle
Martin

---

That low tollerance, for me, is exactly the way to go. The Q&A is in safe hands.!!

LegacyUser

Yeah.. There were no real surprises from the prepared presentations.. but I have to say Martin really pushed the case about as far as humanly possible while remaining "cordial".. Well done!

LegacyUser

Hmm.. must scan through this thread and add it to the Wiki.. Please, anyone else out there.. please refine the Wiki:

http://iewebs.com/~dahamsta/wiki/index.php?FrontPage

LegacyUser

Umm.. don't seem to be able to edit any pages on the wiki at the moment..

Anybody else finding this?

LegacyUser

Umm. That would explain why nobody has contributed anything today

Any ideas Dahamsta?

dahamsta

Something to do with the templates I think - I didn't really look into it much, I just found it and bunged it on the server - so I put back the edit template for now. Seems to be ok again. Sorry about that.

adam

LegacyUser

hmm.. yeah seemed to tie in with the change to the nicer tahoma style layout we won't tell if you don't