Eircom stranglehold makes broadband switching difficult

Net Results: I recently tried to get a second phone line run into my house to try out some services from a broadband service provider other than Eircom.

I have had Eircom broadband for years, ever since it enabled my exchange. I have been quite happy with the service it has provided, though less happy with the prices charged in a market that for a long time, had no real competition. I didn't really want to give up my Eircom service, hence my application for a second line.

Last week, the other broadband company rang to tell me that Eircom had said it couldn't give me a second line, due to demand, although I'll admit I didn't really understand the reason. The only option was for me to transfer my line to the rival company, but it told me that it didn't advise me to make the transfer. Why ever not, especially when it would then have me as a customer? I am not much used to having companies tell me they don't want my custom.

Because, it told me, it would take at least 30 to 60 days to get a new line and quite possibly longer, and I would be totally without a broadband connection during that time.

I listened in disbelief. I had thought there was now plenty of competition in the market for broadband but, because of the way in which Eircom continues to be allowed to manage landlines and broadband provision, I would have to cancel my broadband service with Eircom and the other provider would be required to apply to provide broadband on the same line, which can take some considerable time.

In effect, what this means is that there is no competition at all in the market for someone like me, who already has broadband, unless I want to go wireless or tolerate an extraordinarily long and uncertain period of time with only a dial-up internet connection.

But I didn't want to go wireless, though that's a perfectly fine option; I wanted to try a bundled package of services from one particular supplier that involved getting broadband as well. As I work partly from home and need the internet constantly as a research and communication tool, I couldn't bear the thought of listening to those screechy modem electronic "handshakes" and tolerating the drip-drip-drip download speeds again.

To be honest, I wasn't even sure I wanted to change broadband providers if I couldn't get the second line - but I sure was taken aback to find out that, for all intents and purposes, I had no choice - that despite all the talk about competition in the broadband market coming from both the Government and Eircom.

Why is this area not regulated to require a smooth handover for broadband if requested by the consumer? Such stipulations are in place in other countries and also exist for the mobile operators, who cannot footdrag when a customer wishes to transfer to a rival network and move their existing number.

Imagine if you were forced to go without your mobile service for a couple of months while the rival operator waited to hook your service back up for you, that the excuse was that you still had other alternatives in the interim because you could just use your landline and payphones while you waited for the transfer to happen.

Consumers and businesses would be rightly outraged. There would be speeches from the floor of the Dáil.

The fact that this isn't happening with this anomaly in broadband provision is yet another example of how bizarrely behind we are in thinking about broadband and its central importance in the way many people do business or lead their daily lives.

A broadband connection is not a luxury just as a mobile phone is not a luxury. Both are basic to a citizenry that lives in a 21st-century economy in a country that is supposed to be a technology leader.

We know from bad example how stunted the development of our own mobile marketplace was because of some initial piecemeal regulation that eliminated competition rather than encouraging it, miring our mobile market in lawsuits.

It has taken a decade for a better managed and regulated mobile market to emerge here, still with a low level of competition and some of the highest mobile charges in Europe that many feel are a direct result of those early problems.

We also know how a series of events - mainly, the sale and sale again of Eircom but also the tech industry crash, mergers among other landline operators and poor understanding of the significance of broadband among politicians, coupled with weak regulation - has meant we come in at the very bottom of international league tables with broadband penetration, a shameful turn of events for a supposed tech tiger economy.

How can we not see the importance of such a basic stimulus to the market as enabling proper competition among broadband providers? Why are we penalising the customer who made an early decision to get broadband by effectively eliminating a key option to transfer to another broadband supplier? A healthy market is not just about providing choice to new customers but making sure the continuous availability of choice to all customers motivates all suppliers to provide competitive services at competitive prices.

To accomplish this, the Government needs to give the regulator ComReg the teeth to change how landlines are controlled, open the broadband market properly and in a meaningful way for all customers and force suppliers to comply.