Rocky road to cheaper LLU: eircom wins latest round of fight with ComReg

Siliconrepublic.com reports that the Commission for Communications Regulation (ComReg) has announced that it will not fight an appeal by Irish incumbent telco eircom against the regulator’s decision to reduce local loop unbundling (LLU) wholesale prices. Financial costs, the length of time a court case would take and the likely burden on its resources were cited by the watchdog as reasons to drop the case. In June, ComReg ordered eircom to reduce the wholesale LLU line sharing tariffs it charges other operators from EUR8.41 a month to EUR2.94 per month. However, eircom appealed the decision in the High Court, and ComReg estimated that a final judgement would not be delivered until well into 2009. A statement from the regulator read: ‘ComReg regrets eircom’s decision to appeal and has decided that it must now act in the most practical and expeditious manner available to it and try to minimise the level of uncertainty in the marketplace arising from eircom’s appeal.’ The decision to reduce the LLU line share price to EUR2.94 has been permanently shelved.