The cable TV business is far from happy with the new rules which the telecommunications regulator, Etain Doyle, is proposing for cable and MMDS licences. Central to its reservations is her proposal that licences in particular areas should not be exclusive. Already irked at having to reapply for licences for the areas in which they operate, the cable companies are unhappy that, for example, rival MMDS operators may be able to sell into their cable areas. The issues involved are complex and the regulator is already moving into a legal minefield, with the cable operators taking the Government to court over the damage which they allege has been caused to their finances by the operation of deflector schemes. The proposed new rules also come as RTE and Telecom Eireann try to sell off Cablelink.
No suitor will touch the company with a bargepole until the licence situation becomes clear.
Contact will continue between the regulator and the industry over her proposals. But because the differences of view are so deep and the issue is so fraught, it is hard to see it being sorted out anywhere but in the Four Courts. And this will delay the investment needed to prepare the infrastructure for the digital era.
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