ComReg have determined a formula for the price that Eircom charge other licensed operators (like UTVinternet, BT) for their wholesale bistream product - the formula links the wholesale price to Eircom’s retail broadband product prices. The intent is to stop Eircom from reducing the cost and increasing the speed of their retail broadband offerings while maintaining a static price for their wholesale bitstream product, thereby undercutting their customers/rivals based on cost/performance.

A couple of comments:

  • Where is this magic formula? Is it a secret? The one page ComReg press release gives no specifics.
  • Eircom are apparently happy with this regulation. Eircom are never happy with ComReg or any regulation - they obviously see a hole in it somewhere.
  • It does nothing to address the exorbitant wholesale line rental charge Eircom continue to charge.
  • Was it a co-incidence that Eircom announced a pending speed bump to up to 5Mb downstream/512Kb upstream (and murmurs of future ADSL2+ trials) in the same week that ComReg release this report?