Ms Carolan Lennon:

I might use the word "obligation" rather than monopoly. I do not think it would breach the rules. Universal service obligations have been used for this purpose in other countries. The funding model and rules would have to be agreed. ComReg would have to come up with the rules and it would have to be monitored in terms of what was done. However, we have a universal service obligation in place with regard to the fixed access side. I think we would all agree that broadband and fibre broadband is probably much more relevant today than the fixed access product given that many of us use mobile telephones.