COMREG NEWS
ComReg publishes new Adjudication Rules and Guidelines
Part 7 of the Communications Regulation and Digital Hub Development Agency (Amendment) Act 2023 confers new powers on ComReg to make findings of regulatory breach and to consequently impose administrative sanctions on operators. It also introduces a new adjudication regime, which permits the appointment of nominated independent adjudicators to make these enforcement decisions on behalf of ComReg and the conduct of oral hearings to determine such matters. ComReg has now published guidelines on the proposed adjudication mechanism and oral hearings and welcomes comments from stakeholders on both documents by Friday, 22 March 2024. The full documents can be found here and here.
Three Ireland implements remedial measures in relation to providing its customers with Pricing and Tariff information
ComReg issued a finding of non-compliance on 25 August 2022 to Three Ireland, as the contract provided to its customers did not specify, in an easily accessible manner, the details of prices and tariffs appropriate to their plan. Phone or internet service providers must provide relevant, detailed pricing and tariff information clearly when customers sign up to a plan and such information should be available to access at any point during the contract period. Three Ireland has now confirmed it has implemented the remedial measures so as to ensure that the required information is readily accessible to their customers in both the customer's contract and on Three Ireland's pricing webpage. The full article can be found here.
ComReg Publishes Consumer Care Report Q4 2023
In Q4 2023 ComReg's Consumer Care team answered 3,065 consumer queries and managed 307 consumer complaints. This is a 6% decrease in issues reported to ComReg compared to the same quarter last year. The median resolution time for mobile service provider complaints increased to 9 working days in Q4 2023, compared to 8.5 working days in Q3 2023. For Fixed Service Provider complaints, the median resolution time increased to 10 working days, compared to 7 working days in Q3 2023. The average number of complaints per 100,000 fixed broadband lines increased to 11.8, compared to 10.4 in Q3 2023. The full report can be found here.
INDUSTRY NEWS
National Broadband Plan Update
National Broadband Ireland (NBI) has reported that the delivery of the National Broadband Plan (NBP), which aims to deliver high speed broadband, is still on track. The company's end-of-year report notes that nearly 217,000 premises covered by the network are ready to connect. It states that more than 68,000 premises were connected to the NBI network by the end of January and that this was significantly above all previous forecasts. The NBP aims to connect more than 1.1m people across 564,000 homes, businesses, farms and schools in Ireland where commercial operators do not currently provide high-speed connectivity. Minister of State with responsibility for Communications and Circular Economy Ossian Smyth, said that, due to the success of the plan, "Ireland is now a global leader in digital connectivity and is on target to reach the European Commission's target of gigabit broadband for all by 2030." The full article can be found here.
Global telco alliance to build LLMs for AI assistants and chatbots
A global AI alliance of telecom companies plan to establish a joint venture that will develop large language models (LLMs) tailored to the needs of the telecoms industry. At the inaugural meeting of the Global Telco AI Alliance, five major telecoms companies (SK Telecom, Deutsche Telekom, E& Group, Singtel and SoftBank) agreed to develop LLMs that will improve their customer interactions via digital assistants and chatbots. The joint venture will see the development of multilingual LLMs that can reach a market of approximately 1.3bn people across 50 countries. This marks another interesting development in the telecom sector's response to the rise of AI. Last year, telecoms giant BT revealed plans to cut 42% of its workforce, while increasing the use of emerging technology such as AI. The full article can be found here.
This article contains a general summary of developments and is not a complete or definitive statement of the law. Specific legal advice should be obtained where appropriate.
