The Commission for Communications Regulation (ComReg) has ordered Eircom to outline its policy on connecting consumers to its network in remote areas on or before the end of June 2004.

ComReg issued a direction yesterday amid growing concern that Eircom is not complying with its universal service obligation, which mandates that the firm provide every home and business with a telephone line.

Eircom, which last year said it wanted to abandon its universal service obligation, has failed to provide ComReg with a clear policy on providing universal access despite an October 2003 deadline set by the regulator.

Under the universal service obligation Eircom is required to meet all reasonable requests for telephone lines throughout the State. However, it has so far failed to detail what precisely is a "reasonable request" for service.

Eircom said yesterday that it estimated that the number of non standard requests for service was currently around 6,000 per year.

It also highlighted that British Telecom charged extra for connections which involved more than 100 hours of work.

Mr David McRedmond, Eircom's commercial director, said at the moment these people had to wait until the national telecoms network expanded to meet them.

But in the future Eircom wanted to offer a service in a much quicker timeframe by charging extra for non-standard installations of telephone lines.

Eircom will publish details of its proposed policy in June, said Mr McRedmond, who could not say why Eircom had missed the ComReg deadline for the policy.

Eircom was fully committed to its universal service obligation, which forces it to provide a line for reasonable requests, he said.

Last year Eircom said this obligation was costing the firm about €40 million every year. It said it wanted to set an upper limit on the amount it would spend to connect new households or business to its network.

ALTO, a lobby group for alternative telecoms firms, accused Eircom of trying to wriggle out of its universal service obligation.