PERFORMANCE: Eircom failed to deliver service to a quarter of its new business customers by the date required, a new study has found.

The study, which compares the performance of telecoms operators over three months last year, found Eircom completed just 74 per cent of orders on or before the date confirmed with the customer. This compared poorly with Esat's completion rate of 94 per cent.

An Eircom spokeswoman said the comparisons were not proportionate as Eircom had a much greater market share than Esat. She said the firm had delivered 20,000 of 27,000 orders on time.

Esat customers reported more faults with their business telecoms. They registered 22 faults per 100 business lines compared to 6.25 by Eircom's customers.

The study also found just seven out of every 10 Eircom payphones were in full working order. The number of operated payphones during the period was 7,161.

The performance study, published yesterday by telecoms regulator Ms Etain Doyle proved contentious among some telecoms operators, who last year delayed its publication.

Many observers noted it did not include details on the number of complaints made to operators from customers although it is expected they may be included in the next tranche of statistics.

IBEC's telecoms users group and ALTO, a lobby group for the fixed telecoms industry, said the report should be extended to include mobile phone firms.

The full report is available at http://www.odtr.ie/docs/pres 070302.doc