Sky Television is strongly resisting attempts by telecoms regulator Ms Etain Doyle to regulate the company from next year.

The British firm, which is embroiled in a bitter row with the Government over the broadcast rights to Republic of Ireland soccer games, has told Ms Doyle her plans to regulate Sky in the Republic are legally flawed.

Ms Doyle announced plans in March to make satellite services subject to the same rules as other broadcasters, such as NTL and Chorus, who use cable or microwave networks to offer services.

This would enable Ms Doyle to regulate the firm's distribution networks and prices, but she would not be able to intervene on programming or content matters.

Currently Sky is not regulated in the Irish market and does not pay a levy to the regulator worth 3.5 per cent of its revenues or face price controls. The company also pays the VAT it collects from its 250,000 Irish subscribers to the British exchequer.

Cable firms NTL and Chorus have stated publicly that they believe they are being discriminated against because they are strictly regulated while one of their key competitors is not.

Sky has avoided regulation in the State because none of its channels or services are "uplinked" from this jurisdiction. Instead, Sky beams its programme content to satellites from the UK.

Under the current regulatory framework there is no legal basis for Ms Doyle to regulate satellite firms but she has indicated that an EU package of directives due to come into force in July 2003 will give her powers to intervene.

Documents obtained using the Freedom of Information Act show Sky has warned Ms Doyle that subjecting the firm to the same regulation as other broadcast networks "would be both unnecessary and a misapplication of the EU's Communications Package".

A paper sent to the Office of the Director of Telecommunications Regulation (ODTR) in April by Mr Mark Deering, managing director of Sky Ireland, outlines Sky's strong opposition to being regulated in the Republic. The six-page document says the EU framework does not cover broadcast content and so any new licensing schemes should not extend to television channels licensed in other countries but available in the State.

"Neither BSkyB's own services [Sky One, Sky Sports 1, etc\] nor any other services available on the digital satellite platform operated by BSkyB are uplinked from Ireland. Rather they are all uplinked in the UK - whether by BSkyB, NTL, BT, Globestar or Kingston - and as such would not fall to be regulated by the ODTR," it says.

Sky is subject to content regulation by British regulators.

Sky also says its satellite signals are beamed from Astra satellites, which use orbital slots registered in Luxembourg, and the Eutelstat satellite, which uses an orbital slot in France. These services are covered under the regulatory regimes of these states and do not fall to be regulated in either the UK or Ireland, says the paper.

It also says digital satellite is an open platform in contrast to cable, and it provides its services on a fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory basis. No third-party broadcaster has been denied access to Sky digital's viewers in Ireland, says the paper.

"The ODTR has not sought to regulate BSkyB's activities in Ireland in the intervening four years and we are not aware of any issues that have arisen in that period which would warrant increased regulatory scrutiny."

Sky concedes that the Irish terrestrial services - RTÉ, TV3 and TG4 - that it carries on its digital platform should be regulated in the Republic because RTÉ is providing an uplinking service.

However, they form a small part of its service and would have little effect on its operations overall.

The success of the regulator's attempt to draw Sky under regulatory control may rest with a decision from the EU on which individual communications markets will be given a special designation for regulation. The regulator and the Competition Authority recently submitted a joint document to the European Commission asking for the European pay-television market to be included in this decision, which is expected shortly.