Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 27 January 2016

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport and Communications

Electronic Communications Markets: Commission for Communications Regulation

10:05 am

Photo of Helen McEnteeHelen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I have raised the issue of smartphones and basic voice services before with people within the industry and they have agreed that it is an issue. However, while the witnesses refer to road testing on national roads, people do not live on national roads.

I carried out my own survey last summer and of the first 110 people who responded, 45% of them lived on local roads. ComReg needs to start testing local and regional roads where people in rural areas live. Mr. Godfrey said fines worth €3 million were levied where people did not comply. An average telephone bill in County Meath is €30, which seems small, but if one considers the number of people who live there and that some will have two phones, that means more than €50 million a month is going to service providers or €600 million a year. Fines totalling €3 million for the entire country are not much for a failure to provide the service. Will ComReg consider testing the other routes again? Does the organisation have the finance or the capacity? It cannot do its job properly if it is only testing regional roads.

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