Mr. Gerry Fahy:

I would like to talk about roaming which has been somewhat controversial in recent times in respect of how the benefits of the European roam like at home regulations will be implemented in the Irish market. Let me take a step back and recall what roaming is. Roaming takes place when one takes one mobile abroad and generate a call or a text or a data event on a foreign network. That network generates a wholesale charge which it bills back to one's home operator. The home operator likely adds a retail margin and then one receives the bill. Those charges in the past were very high and were quite negatively received, naturally, and the European Commission took a close interest in seeking to address that issue.

In August 2007, the Commission commenced looking at the retail and wholesale charges for voice services and since that activity has rolled out over the years the retail prices for outgoing voice calls has reduced by 92%. In July 2010 it began to look at the wholesale charges for SMS and for data and since 2010 the retail charge for sending SMS has reduced by 92%. In 2012 it began to look very much more closely at charges for data and since then data roaming charges have reduced by 96%.

In April 2016 the Commission began the transition towards the roam like at home capability, putting very severe surcharge caps on the various elements of mobile usage. The culmination of that process will be on 15 June 2017 when the new roam like at home regulations come into force. That will effectively mean that one should be able to take one's home tariff abroad anywhere within the EU and use it as one would at home.

There are certain exceptions allowed, however, and I would like to take the committee through these. When the European Commission and the various bodies concerned examined this issue, they understood that there were certain very attractive domestic bundles in particular markets in Europe.

When the European Commission and the various bodies were analysing this, they saw that there were some very attractive domestic bundles in particular markets in Europe, namely, the Scandinavian markets and in Ireland, where there were very large or effectively unlimited bundles of data available. If such bundles were obliged to be offered as a roaming capability, there would be unlimited wholesale charges and the offering operators would be at risk of having to respond to such charges. This was recognised as being an anomaly and if a roaming regime was implemented in this way, operators such as those in Ireland might be forced to take their particularly large bundles off the market. These large data bundles are very attractive and are very positive in terms of competition and consumer benefit. Therefore, a decision was made that a fair usage policy could be applied to these especially large bundles to protect the domestic data bundles while still allowing very significant amounts of roaming data to be made available. In the example outlined in my presentation document, the retail price for the tariff in Ireland is €25, including data. The customer will be able to use up to 6.5 Gbit of data while roaming. Given that the average smartphone user in Ireland today uses less than 3.5 Gbit of data per month, that is quite a generous amount of data to be allowed for while roaming. We must also bear in mind that 95% of travellers in Europe stay away for less than two weeks. This was seen as a way of ensuring domestic customers did not effectively have to subsidise roamers because, surprising as this may be, not everybody roams. At the European level approximately one third of customers do not roam at all. Therefore, it is possible to be compliant with the regulations while bringing in a fair usage policy. If a customer goes over the cap on the data bundle while roaming, he or she will pay a 0.77 cent charge. Operators need to inform the regulator of their intention to bring in this fair usage policy and they must also inform their customers of same.

What has ComReg being doing about all of this? ComReg has written to all of the mobile operators reminding them of their obligations under the regulations and asking them what changes they are making to their tariffs to comply with those obligations and with the regulations coming into force on 15 June. Operators have indicated that the necessary steps are being taken to comply with the new roaming regulations and ComReg will be undertaking a full review of these tariffs, as implemented, to be satisfied with respect to their compliance. ComReg also notes that following the publication of the roaming guidelines produced recently by the Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications, BEREC, one operator in particular, 3, has announced a change to its previously publicly indicated approach with the introduction of a fair usage policy bundle as provided for in the regulations.

I will now move on to talk about some other significant achievements at ComReg in the recent past. Yesterday, ComReg was pleased to announce the outcome of its 3.6 GHz spectrum auction. There were five winners and all the spectrum was assigned, which effectively is an 86% uplift on the amount of spectrum that was available previously for mobility services. This is in line with the strategy we outlined in 2016 in respect of spectrum. The five winners were three mobile operators, one new entrant and one fixed wireless operator. Between them they will pay €78 million to the Exchequer over the licence period of 15 years.

In recent months, ComReg has redesignated Eir as a universal service provider, USP, for five years. We have also instigated a new quality regime in service provision with a particular focus on rural areas. We have imposed penalties in the order of €3 million on Eir for failing to meet its quality service targets in previous years. In promoting competition, ComReg has set wholesale prices for voice and data services on the Eir fixed network at a level that will stimulate more competition. We have also published proposals for a reduction in charges for services using Eir's next generation access network with the aim of stimulating further competition.

In terms of enforcement actions undertaken to uphold consumer rights, several successful prosecutions have been taken by ComReg in the courts against various operators for overcharging and incorrect billing. We are also taking action to ensure consumers are properly informed about contract changes and have the opportunity to exercise their right to sever a contract should they so wish. A number of investigations are ongoing in that area.

I look forward to engaging with committee members.