ComReg lied lied lied to the Oireachtas when they testified in front of them a few months ago. They told them the failure rate in the Republic was the same as the North. It’s 0.0015% there and 12% here. 8000 times higher. I’m glad something is going to be done about the continuous lies our telecoms regulator is telling.
According to the Sunday Times:
A DAIL committee is to examine whether ComReg, the telecom regulator, provided it with misleading information during an inquiry into Eircom’s broadband infrastructure, writes Mark Tighe.
Last June ComReg told the joint Oireachtas committee on communications, marine and natural resources that broadband failure rates in Northern Ireland “are broadly in line with our experience�. But Eircom’s own statistics show its broadband failure rate of 12% is much higher than the 1% claimed by BT in Northern Ireland.
From the Oireachtas minutes:
Bernard Durkan asked Isolde Goggin:
I draw her attention to line failure in broadband. We were not able to get information on the extent of that line failure because it is supposed to be commercially sensitive. Is ComReg aware of the extent of line failure resulting in an inability to provide broadband services?
Isolde Goggin answered:
We get information from Eircom about the rate of line failure and the time to repair, and issues regarding repeat faults and so on. Our experience of the number of lines connected to a broadband-enabled exchange that will fail the test appears to be in line with that in other countries. The experience in Northern Ireland, for example, bears that out.
In their written submission to the Oireachtas they were asked and answered, under the heading of:
Line failure in broadband enabled exchanges
Q8. Does ComReg collect data on line failure in broadband enabled exchanges?
Yes.Q9. Is ComReg satisfied or surprised with the amount and/or frequency of failures?
ComReg considers, from international experience, that some level of line failure is inevitable due, for instance, to long lines or the use of carriers. There are also a variety of ways of defining what represents a line failure and we are aware that different companies have differing approaches to the testing of lines. For instance, the current approach adopted by eircom may be overconservative, based on experience in the UK. While comparative data is difficult to obtain, it would appear that faults per 1,000 lines in NI are broadly in line with our experience.
Again I ask and I do so often, why is our regulator misleading the public and the Government?
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