| Dear Mary, Thank you for the e-mail. >>Competition among >>operators will help to bring prices >>down and improve quality of service.. If the National Roads Authority had a monopoly control over the roads between Dublin and Cork and imposed a toll of EUR 50 per bus passenger travelling over this route, the cheapest bus ticket would probably cost at least EUR 60. Even if you had ten dog eat dog competing bus service providers on the route. Surely this is the position with eircom and DSL right now? They are exercising monopoly control over the information roadway, and are extracting sky high "tolls" from anybody wishing to provide DSL services. With your and previous governments' blessing! An ISP is not going to spend a few million Euros rolling out an alternative (eg wireless broadband) service because he knows that when he gets up and running, eircom will drop their DSL pricing and put him out of business. Because they have the lowest cost delivery mechanism already in place - i.e. copper pairs already paid for by dial-up services. The only marginal investment for them is the DSLAM at the switching centre. By contrast cable operators have to invest substantial sums to upgrade entire neighbourhoods before they can sign up the first cable broadband user. Monopolistic abuse is unlawful under State and EU law. There are dozens of indicators that would support a charge of loop monopolization against eircom, when one compares the position in Ireland with other countries. Mr Justice Flood would have a field day! Surely it is time that the competition laws were used against the company with a view to reducing wholesale and retail DSL services to at least the EU average cost - i.e. under EUR 50, incl VAT for a service without traffic limits? With wide availability in urban areas for starters? And verification of DSL line testing routines to ensure that aspiring customers aren't fobbed off by "your line is unsuitable for DSL" messages based on artificially high test criteria. Not to mention defective website test interfaces. Can we please have some urgent action? Kind regards. |