The plan looks like more of the same, and is perhaps a missed opportunity to focus on emerging issues such as sustainability
A strategy with five intents: The Irish regulator, ComReg, has finished consulting on what its strategy will be for the next five years. The regulator has identified five strategic intents that include: delivering efficient investment and competition, fostering consumer protection, ensuring widespread connectivity and network resilience, enforcing compliance, and being an agile, effective, and relevant regulator.
Taking a leaf out of ARCEP’s book on fixed broadband: ComReg notes that the competitive landscape in the country is not uniform, but so far competition and investment have delivered greater choice for consumers in the most densely populated areas. For the less populated areas, the Irish Government is investing in fibre through National Broadband Ireland (NBI) with appropriate wholesale access obligations. Over the coming period, ComReg aims to ensure NBI can access Eircom’s physical infrastructure assets and regulated products. For the first time, ComReg is considering analysing the market for Physical Infrastructure Access as a separate market, much like ARCEP in its latest review of wholesale access markets in France. This should target regulatory intervention at the most upstream level, and facilitate more competition and deregulation downstream.
New ways to protect the consumer journey: ComReg’s vision of consumer protection reflects the consumer journey in four stages – looking for an offer, signing up, using the service, and leaving the contract. ComReg’s future attention will also relate to the implementation of the consumer rights set out in the European Electronic Communications Code. ComReg is committing to enhance its engagement with consumers, and to improve the information they have available through comparison tools. The regulator will also consider developing a map for fixed broadband coverage, which is currently not available, on top of the existing mobile coverage checker, which will be enhanced to include 5G.
Monitoring developments in sustainability: ComReg also reflects on emerging trends in the communications sector, and identifies climate change as one of them, with operators’ recent commitments to prioritise sustainability and reduce the carbon footprint of their networks. The regulator already sought input from industry on ‘Connectivity and Decarbonisation’ in H1 2020. However the proposed five-year strategy does not identify any specific course of action here – perhaps a notable absence given ComReg’s commitment to monitor developments.
Source: https://www.comreg.ie/publication/draft-ecs-strategy-statement-public-consultation
