Eircom will continue to face strict price controls and regulation over how it enables rival firms to repackage and sell its own suite of broadband services.
It will also have to offer rivals the same wholesale margins that exist for its i-stream service for a range of proposed new products due for launch next month, the Commission for Communications (ComReg) ruled yesterday.
The new regulations are contained in a direction published late on Thursday by ComReg, which is currently involved in a bitter dispute with Eircom over enabling access to its network.
The direction designates Eircom as having significant market power in the market for the supply of wholesale broadband access services in the Republic.
This is the market that enables Eircom's rivals to repackage the firm's own broadband service and offer it to their customers, often at a discount.
Eircom is designated with significant market power because it owns the local access network in the Republic - the last mile of the copper network that runs into almost every home in the State.
In the direction, ComReg says that within the period of its review there was nothing to suggest that Eircom's dominance would be diluted in any meaningful way. It also sets out certain remedies to enable other operators to provide competition in the retail broadband market.
The remedies include obligations to force it to offer other firms access to a "bitstream" - its own i-stream broadband service - to repackage and offer to users.
It also faces price controls, accounting separation and cost accounting obligations to ensure it does not discriminate against firms such as Esat BT and UTV Internet who offer its service.
ComReg also specified interim price controls to stand when Eircom introduces a range of new broadband products sometime in March or early April.
These controls mean that Eircom will have to offer the same margins for operators who want to repackage and sell its new products until a new review is completed by the regulator.
ComReg said that the European Commission had been notified of its direction. It had not raised any objections to its plan.
Meanwhile, ComReg is expected to go the High Court next Monday to try to force Eircom to comply with its rulings on opening its network to rivals.
Last Thursday Eircom was granted a judicial review against a series of enforcement rulings made against it by the regulator.
