COMREG IN NEW EIRCOM WARNING - An ultimatum has been issued to Eircom by regulator ComReg. Eircom has been ordered by ComReg to play ball on access to its network or face a day in the High Court.
One of the companies which is seeking to benefit from what is known as local loop unbundling is Perlico.
Its chief executive is Ian McDonald describes local loop unbundling as the process which allows rival operators to unplug a customer's line from Eircom's network into their own.
He says the current issue relates to new processes to govern the transfer of customers from Eircom. He says Eircom has failed to respond to a request to ComReg to detail how the processes would work, which has led to ComReg's warning yesterday.
Mr McDonald said Eircom had significant market presence, and was required under EU law to make LLU available to other operators.
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'WIND BLOWING TOWARDS NEW ENERGY' - Eddie O'Connor, chief executive of wind energy operator Airtricity, said the coming into force of the Kyoto Protocol today was good news for Airtricity, but better news for the world.
He said there were 'cultural issues' involved in the US's decision to stay out of the protocol, but argued that the US had a far better support system for wind energy than in Ireland. Mr O'Connor said many US businesses realised global warming was happening and were trying to do something about it.
Mr O'Connor accused the energy regulator's of halting the development of wind energy in Ireland, by putting a cap on wind energy's penetration of the national grid.
He said Ireland was 'hugely vulnerable' and highly dependent on gas, adding that 'all our bridges were burned'.
Mr O'Connor dismissed concerns about the reliability of wind energy as 'all in the mind', saying Airtricity had shown that money could be made out of renewable energy.
He also said the US should be worried about falling behind Europe in the development of alternative energy sources, as these would be the future of the industry.
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MARKETS - On currency markets, the euro is $1.30 and 69p sterling.
