Eircom's rivals are unable to rent telephone lines to residential customers almost a year after the Commission for Communications Regulation (ComReg) planned to launch a new "single bill" service.
The new product, intended to revitalise competition in the ailing residential telecoms market, has been delayed by a litany of technical hitches and complex regulatory delays.
This means that consumers who switch from Eircom to another operator, such as Esat BT or Smart Telecom, receive two bills - one from Eircom for line rental and one from their new operator for calls.
The hassle of receiving two bills from different firms for a telecoms service is considered one of the main reasons why competition in the residential telecoms market has recently weakened.
Between January 2001 and July 2002, Eircom won back 150,000 of the 320,000 customers that had chosen to go to a rival telecoms operator.
And in the last quarter, the number of customers who took a residential telephone service from rivals fell a further 2 per cent, according to ComReg's own quarterly survey.
In a review of the market, ComReg recently expressed concern that just 10 per cent of Irish households - some 176,000 - have signed up with Eircom's rivals, well below the 30 per cent in many other European markets.
ALTO, a lobby group representing Eircom's rivals, said yesterday that consumers were losing out because the single-bill product had not been launched.
"The liberalisation of the telecoms market was supposed to deliver savings to consumers but in Ireland it is doing the opposite," said Mr Iarla Flynn, chairman of ALTO. "Eircom's line rental prices have gone up 47 per cent since 1999 while this single-bill service is being delayed."
The sharp fall in consumers taking a service from Eircom's rivals last year persuaded ComReg to announce in July 2002 that it would force Eircom to introduce a wholesale line rental product in January 2003 enabling alternative firms to offer users a single bill.
But a survey of alternative operators shows that, 11 months later, none of the companies are yet in a position to offer a wholesale line rental product.
ALTO blames Eircom for frustrating the process of introducing a single-bill product. It also says ComReg has taken its eye off the ball on single billing.
Eircom's commercial director, Mr David McRedmond, said the product had been available to rivals since June 2003 but they have chosen not to launch a service. But he admits there has been a recent hitch regarding the national directory database, which holds the telephone number of every person in the State.
Sources at other telecoms operators insist that Eircom has frustrated the process by delaying the automation of transferring customers bills and consistently slowing the process.
In a statement issued to The Irish Times, ComReg said wholesale line rental was currently undergoing extended field trials.When testing has been completed to the satisfaction of the operators, it is expected the product will be made available to the public, said the statement.
