Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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To ask the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources if he will make contact with Eircom to raise concerns about the current proposal to drop the price of telephone lines by €4 per month to customers in cities and towns as part of their broadband rural plans;; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [7706/13]

Pat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour)
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Eircom is a private company. I have no legal basis to seek to influence its commercial decisions on pricing. Eircom is the designated provider of universal services in the telecommunications market. In June 2012, the Commission for Communications Regulation (ComReg) extended until June 2014, the universal service obligation addressed to Eircom which, among other things, requires that line rental for basic fixed line telephone services is available to end users at a standard price across the country. There are no proposals to amend this obligation. Separately, ComReg published a decision (ref. no., 13/14) on its website last week, which allows Eircom greater flexibility in setting wholesale rates for bundled services offered to its competitors at telephone exchanges where there is already active competition among service providers and/or exchanges where next generation access services are available. The retail price for basic fixed line telephone services is not altered as a consequence of the decision and remains at a standard price across the country in line with Eircom’s universal service obligation. This was an independent decision on bundled service which was reached by ComReg in accordance with its mandate. I had no statutory function in the process.