Esat attended a meeting with the telecoms regulator yesterday to complain about dramatic increases in the length of time it takes Eircom to provide competitors with leased lines and circuits.

The provision of these telecoms circuits, which carry voice and data traffic, is considered vital to enable competition in the telecoms market and promote economic development. Esat also claimed Eircom had failed to honour the terms of a penalty regime introduced in February by not paying Esat fines which are due because of delays in the supply of circuits.

However, this was categorically denied by Eircom last night which said it had already agreed to provide credit to Esat in mid-September. This credit is believed to be worth up to £250,000.

The most recent figures published by Eircom show that the number of days it took to provide certain types of telecoms circuits to its competitors during July more than doubled.

The delivery lead times for a two-megabit circuit supplied by Eircom jumped to 99 days in July from just 43 days in the previous month. The times for lines with lower capacity increased to 52 days from 39 days.

Under a settlement reached between Eircom, other operators and the regulator, Eircom has to deliver circuits within 26 to 30 days and is subject to uncapped penalties if it fails to deliver.

A spokeswoman for Eircom said the reason the figures for July looked so high was that two customers had placed large orders with Eircom in January but specified that they did not want the orders fulfilled until July. She said the delivery lead times for August would show a significant improvement. Advance figures shown to The Irish Times last night suggest the longest delay for circuits in August fell to just 44 days.