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The Office of the Director of Telecommunications Regulation said on Thursday that this new form of interconnection will enable Other Licenced Operators (OLOs) to make more effective use of their network investment and interconnect more flexibility and economically.
The decision was made as part of a review of Eircom's Reference Interconnection Offer (RIO). This is the catalogue of services that Eircom gives other operators, enabling them in turn to offer their own services to consumers and businesses in Ireland.
This was the third review undertaken by the regulator of Eircom's interconnection offer and was prompted by the complaints from certain operators that the former state monopoly was hindering their access to its infrastructure. This, they said, was stifling the development of competition in the Irish telecoms market.
The move has been welcomed by the Association of Licensed Telecom Operators, which represents many of the operators who compete with Eircom. Its chairman, Iarla Flynn, told ElectricNews.Net that it would mean increased efficiencies and lower costs for operators.
"OLOs have been looking for such a change for quite some time," commented Flynn. "Up until now, OLOs could only interconnect with Eircom's network at a limited number of switches. This ruling will mean that OLOs will now be able to interconnect with Eircom at an expanded number of points of presence, which will enable them to save money and be more efficient. These savings can then be passed on to consumers."
The regulator made several other decisions as part of its review. This included the creation of two separate forums to develop in greater detail a new partial private circuits product and to address the interconnection billing process. The private circuits forum is due to be convened on 9 September 2002 and sit once a week with a target completion date of 20 December 2002.
The regulator also said that the industry's interconnect operations and maintenance forum would be revamped to address the operational aspects of the interconnect regime and that version control to Eircom's interconnection offer would be introduced.
The latter decision means that Eircom will have to seek approval from the regulator every time it makes changes to its RIO contract.
Other issues reviewed by the regulator included routing and capacity issues, billing and payments, management aspects of the RIO, new services, and service level agreements for interconnect links.
"Eircom's RIO is a living document and will change with the requirements of the market," said the Regulator, Etain Doyle, in a statement. "I believe these decisions bring the Irish RIO into line with best EU practice and the version control will help improve the transparency of Eircom's RIO for other operators."
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