Consumers will be able to order a telephone line from alternative operators, Esat BT and Smart Telecom, for the first time from May 1st, following a deal signed this week with Eircom.
But it could take months for the "single-bill system" to be fully up and running because Eircom will initially process customer requests manually rather than set up a computer system.
Esat BT and Smart Telecom finally signed a wholesale line-rental agreement with Eircom on Thursday, clearing the way for both companies to offer a line-rental service to consumers.
Until now competitors, to Eircom have only been able to offer call services. This meant that consumers who signed up to alternative operators for calls still had to pay line-rental charges to Eircom.
By introducing a wholesale line-rental service for alternative operators, rival firms will now be able to offer a single bill to consumers for line rental and calls.
The Commission for Communications Regulation (ComReg) has identified the lack of a single telephone bill for consumers as a major inhibitor to introducing competition in the marketplace.
This week ComReg ordered a full review of the domestic telecoms market following a difficult period for alternative operators, who have seen their market share for call services fall significantly.
"ComReg is concerned that progress appears now to be faltering. Overall levels of CPS - a system which rivals to Eircom use to offer call services - usage are around 10 per cent, which is significantly below international best practice, where figures in excess of 20 per cent have been achieved by some countries," said ComReg in its new paper.
It also said the number of customers leaving rival operators to go back to Eircom seems comparatively high and raised questions about the potential for competition in the market.
Over the past two years, several firms have exited the consumer telecoms market because they felt it was too difficult to compete with Eircom.
The Association for Licensed Telecoms (ALTO) said the new single-bill system should give a welcome boost to the industry. But Mr Iarla Flynn, chairman of ALTO, said the prospects for a widespread commercial launch of single billing look poor at this stage because there was no computer system to process orders.
"The current Eircom offer is for a service based on manual processing of orders. This will require huge resource inputs from all sides and would inhibit growth of the service," he said.
A spokesman for Eircom said the company was now ready to meet the end of April deadline that had been set by ComReg. He said Eircom realised it would be a challenge for the rest of the industry to meet this deadline.
The introduction of a single-bill system was initially forecast to be introduced by January 2003 but was delayed when Eircom struggled to agree wholesale line-rental charges with ComReg.
