Comreg's strategic targets for 2006 will focus on pushing the expansion of broadband throughout Ireland by facilitating local loop unbundling, according to its chairperson Isolde Goggin.

The communications regulator will also concentrate on monitoring technological change in the telecommunications industry and on strengthening consumer awareness on pricing. Comreg was established in 2002 with statutory powers to regulate the telecommunications industry.

Ms Goggin said that competitively priced broadband availability was essential to maintaining Ireland's competitiveness, but could not be achieved without progress on local loop unbundling (LLU). She said some progress had been made in relation to LLU access pricing, but maintained that further progress was needed. "The lack of a functioning process is clearly disappointing. Recent progress on some elements of the process at an industry-wide level needs to be built upon in tandem with the developments in other platforms, if we are to build the momentum needed for Ireland to move up the 'league table'."

Technological change is altering the industry and Comreg will have to achieve a common understanding with industry players if it is to avoid inappropriate regulation, she said. "The development of competing platforms is very encouraging. Wireless broadband usage has risen by 2,000 per cent in the past year. Technological change takes three years to filter down to the mass market, but we can already understand how core changes will affect the market."

In 2005 Comreg launched a website to provide consumers with information on charge tariffs for mobile phone packages. Comreg aims to extend this facility in 2006. "To date there have been over 50,000 hits on the website. In the first half of 2006 it will be further developed to cover fixed and broadband communications as well," she said.

Ms Goggin said that the radio spectrum - which is used to allocate frequencies for a variety of telecommunications service providers - needed to be allocated more efficiently.

The EU group on Spectrum Management is assessing the traditional method of licensing the spectrum to examine how market mechanisms could contribute to its more efficient usage.

Ms Goggin said that Ireland had relatively high spectrum availability because of its peripheral location and that a more flexible licensing system could help to attract foreign telecommunications operators to locate here.