Telecoms regulator Ms Etain Doyle has expressed disappointment at Eircom's failure to provide acceptable terms for enabling access to its local network and has set a one-month deadline to resolve the issue.
Ms Doyle said she felt there had been unnecessary delays in the unbundling process and expressed dismay that "relatively straightforward" issues had needed regulatory intervention.
"While this has been a very complex issue, I did expect that we would have had everything in place by now," she said. "I am still waiting for some information on costing," she added.
Ms Doyle said a final report on the implementation of local loop unbundling would be issued by the end of this month.
"At that stage, all work on processes and collocation is to be completed and a final determination issued," she added.
Ms Doyle said her office would meet Eircom executives shortly to set out a new work plan for the introduction of bitstream access to the local network - access which is still managed by Eircom.
Eircom recently dropped its plans to provide a retail offering package to consumers by April 1st when it scrapped the technology platform upon which it planned to deliver digital subscriber line services.
Ms Doyle said the current downturn in international markets was a concern to the Office of the Director of Telecommunications Regulation (ODTR) but needed to be examined in the context of the current state of development of the Republic's market.
"Many competitors have entered the market seeking to establish a presence by means of innovative services and consumer offerings," she said. "The ODTR would wish that this rate of development would continue."
She rejected the suggestion that Irish consumers remained in the slow lane of technological development due to a bottleneck on Internet access methods.
"Our recent survey on consumers showed a high level of consumer satisfaction with progress to date," she said.
Regarding NTL's revised plans to offer a limited digital television service, Ms Doyle said she hoped the company's new strategy would only be short-term and it would soon begin to develop its full complement of broadband services.
She said she was anxious to move as quickly as possible on the issuing of third-generation licences. "At this point, 11 of the 15 countries have run their competitions. Ireland together with Luxembourg, Greece and Denmark are still outstanding," said Ms Doyle.
She would not comment on the stand off between the Minister for Finance, Mr McCreevy, and her office on the issue of pricing for the licences.
Asked if there was now a case for more proactive regulation, Ms Doyle said she was committed to putting in place the necessary regulatory framework to allow competition to flourish.
