The Commission for Communications Regulation has issued a direction to Eircom in an effort to resolve a dispute which threatens to delay the introduction of a new single billing system for its rivals.

The service is scheduled to be introduced before January 31st and could shake up the ailing fixed-line telecoms market, which has seen several competitors leave the sector this year.

It would enable consumers and businesses to go to rival operators other than Eircom and receive a single bill for the service. The current practice is for Eircom to continue to provide a bill for line rental to consumers while rivals supply a separate bill for calls.

It is understood a bitter dispute erupted this week between Eircom and several competitors, including Esat BT and WorldCom, which has forced the Commission to intervene.

Rival operators such as Esat BT and WorldCom believe Eircom is deliberately delaying a process to introduce the system, and have told the Commission that the January 31st deadline may be missed.

Following the acrimonious break-up of an industry meeting with all three parties represented, the Commission this week issued a direction to Eircom to provide specific details on the new service to Esat BT and WorldCom.

The direction will force Eircom to meet strict deadlines to provide relevant data, said a Commission spokeswoman, who insisted that the deadline for the introduction of the service could still be met.

Eircom last night said it was committed to the deadline of the end of January and accused rival operators of a tactic to delay a parallel process to have the price cap on its telecoms services removed. "In our view the walk- out by the other operators was a tactic to delay wholesale line rental [the new service] so that the new price cap would be delayed resulting in the current punitive cap continuing to apply to Eircom," the firm said in a statement.

Esat BT rejected this allegation last night and called for all operators to have the opportunity to compete through the new product.