Telecoms Bill needs action, says IBEC

More competition in broadband services provision is needed along with greater consistency and fairness in the relationship between local authorities and telecommunications operators, according to the business and employers' group.

The IBEC policy document released yesterday - Broadband Services in Ireland - Policies for Customer Choice - calls on the Minister for Public Enterprise, Ms O'Rourke, to modify and implement the telecommunications infrastructure Bill to allow the construction of an alternative broadband network in the Republic.

It states the Bill needs to be modified to deal with planning permission, which has stalled the development of broadband networks.

At the document's presentation yesterday, the chairman of IBEC's telecommunication's policy committee, Mr Terry Ralph, said planning regulations were a `hornet's nest' impeding the development of the State's telecoms infrastructure. He said IBEC would like to see a general development order (GDO), similar to Britain's, written into planning legislation going through the Oireachtas. This would remove the lengthy court appeal process by defining the legal terms of reference for construction of telecoms networks and would ensure equal treatment for such firms.

Referring to local opposition to mobile phone masts, IBEC's assistant director of enterprise/telecommunications, Mr Tommy McCabe, said a GDO order would take some of these decisions out of the hands of local planning authorities.

While the report welcomes the Office of Director of Telecommunications Regulation, it wants a formal appeals structure to remove the need for judicial reviews of decisions. On the controversy surrounding the award of the third mobile phone licence, Mr Ralph said a new administrative appeals structure had to be "water-tight".