Eircom hikes up the cost of line rental

15-06-2007

by Emmet Ryan

Eircom has announced that the cost of fixed line rental is to increase by EUR1.18 per month.

The former incumbent announced the rise in line rental charges and several other price increases on Thursday evening. Under Eircom's new pricing system line rental will cost EUR25.36 per month. The telecoms operator said the average phone bill will increase by 3.6 percent as a result of the new charges. The new prices will come into effect from 30 July.

"Eircom has not increased line rental in over three years. As with any other utility operating in the Irish market, we continue to face the challenges of increased business costs, higher wages and the need to continuously invest in our network," said Rex Comb, chief executive of Eircom.

The price increases were criticised by Damien Mulley, who was the last chairman of recently defunct lobby group IrelandOffline. Mulley said the reasons Eircom gave for the increase lacked merit. "Eircom is such a large company that they could have found other ways of cutting costs if they wanted to," he told ENN.

Mulley said he was not surprised by the decision to increase the charges or by the timing of the announcement. "It was mooted for so long and a lot of people expected that [Eircom] would hold off until after the election," he said.

Aside from line rental, the cost of making calls will also increase. There will be changes across the board with charges for local and national daytime, evening and weekend calls all to rise by between 4.8 percent and 4.9 percent. Charges for broadband and international calls will remain unchanged.

In a statement Eircom said the average Irish telephone bill for both business and residential customers would stay below the EU average. Mulley said the former incumbent was being selective with this claim by not including line rental. "Line rental was already the most expensive in Europe and now it's going to be around EUR9 more than the EU average."

Paul Bradley, spokesman for Eircom, told ENN that the telecoms operator was initiating research into its pricing models. "We are entering a pricing review and that will help set the tone of what the prices will be going forward," he said.