The Telephone User Group (TUG) has criticised Eircom for a deterioration in services. "Irish business continues to struggle to achieve even basic levels of product and service essential for the day-to-day running of their businesses," it said.

The chairman of IBEC's Telecommunications User Group (TUG), Ms Dee Carri, commenting on the group's latest position paper, said: "There are several areas where TUG members can readily identify a deterioration in service levels following the deregulation, most notably in reliability, speed of provision of new services, directory entry administrative delays and delays in provision of services by Eircom to third-party competitors."

The paper said capacity problems with providers' local broadband services are causing "islands of isolation, even in Dublin". And concurrent with the measurable deterioration in services is the "growth of the digital divide within the business sector".

This has been identified on two levels. First, large companies benefit from significantly superior services and commercial terms than those offered to small and medium-sized firms. Second, businesses located outside urban areas get the worst deals with lesser service, a lack of broadband products and lack of competition. Ms Carri said: "It is quite clear that many of the communications services necessary for the running of a modern business - such as broadband ISDN lines - are only available on a patchy basis in Ireland."

While TUG acknowledges that competition will ultimately resolve the problems, Ms Carri noted that "real competition - with the exception of mobile communications - will take a number of years. Until a fully competitive market is realised, a more holistic approach to deregulation is necessary, balancing the requirements of communications providers and customers". The paper proposes a five-pronged action plan to alleviate the current concerns of business users. This includes:

an independent benchmark of the internal communications market in Ireland and a communications needs analysis of the Irish business community;

the establishment of a complaints and dispute resolution system;

the unbundling of the local loop to provide competition at a local level.

the provision of modern and appropriate technology.

the putting in place of "tools" to facilitate business decision-making, such as a broadband map showing what is available, in what location and by which provider.