Sky Ireland Ltd has been spared a court conviction for breaking telecom regulations after four phone customers experienced delays or double billing after switching landline service.
It pleaded guilty in April at Dublin District Court to failing to comply with laws governing "porting" or transferring existing numbers to Sky Ireland's phone service.
The company admitted that in the four cases before the court, it failed to comply with regulation 25(1) of the European Communities (Electronic Communications Networks and Services) (Universal Service and Users' Rights) Regulations 2011.
It follows an investigation by the Commission for Communications Regulation (ComReg).
The law provides that the process should be easy: porting should be active within a day, and loss of service should be at most one working day.
Judge Anthony Halpin had noted Sky Ireland had no prior convictions, co-operated with the industry watchdog, and paid ComReg's costs. In addition, it reimbursed the double-billed customers, and it developed software to tackle the problem.
He also said he was surprised a standard system within the industry did not exist to facilitate an easy porting process.
He had adjourned finalising the case to give Sky time to donate €5,000 to charity. Noting yesterday/today (Mon) that the company had complied, and Jude Halpin proceeded to strike out the case.
An earlier hearing was told confusion over customer reference numbers caused the problems.
A ComReg officer told the court that the first customer was "pretty frustrated" having to wait from February 18 to March 15, 2021, until their phone was transferred to Sky Ireland's service.
The user did not have use of their landline, was double billed and had to make calls and email Sky Ireland.
The second customer had to wait from November 29, 2021, until February 2022, and the company managed to complete the switch after 20 attempts. It caused difficulties for the customer contacting his bank, the court heard.
The third "annoyed" complainant had to wait a week and was double billed; the fourth also had to wait seven days and suffered service loss.
Counsel said the process was complex. However, the firm developed bespoke software to fix the problem. It had also retrained staff and offered to meet ComReg on several occasions.
Pleading for leniency, the defence had submitted that the four complainants represented a small number of 21,000 phone users who switched to Sky Ireland last year.
Judge Halpin had ordered the charitable donation to benefit the Little Flower Penny Dinner Charity, which helps underprivileged people in Dublin city centre's Liberties area.
At district level, each charge can result in a recorded conviction and fines of up to €5,000 per charge.
