30 September 2004

Brendan O’ Reilly

Broadcasting Policy Division

Department of Communications, Marine & Natural Resources

29-31 Adelaide Road

Dublin 2

Submission on Review of Radio Licensing

Dear Brendan

ntl welcomes the opportunity to comment on the Department’s consultation paper on the review of radio licensing in Ireland. We have limited our comments to the following areas which are of particular concern to ntl.

Licensing Appeals Body

ntl strongly supports the principle that there should be a procedure for appealing all decisions of regulators, including licensing decisions, on their merits to an appeals body. Furthermore, we would also support the Regulatory Appeals panel model that has been introduced in the telecommunications sector. However we are concerned that current government proposals will lead to excessive fragmentation of the regulatory appeals process. In particular, the current approach, whereby separate appeals panels have been, or are in the process of being, set up for different industry sectors, appears to us to be lacking in coherence and consistency.

On this basis, we would strongly urge the Department, as responsible department for a number of sectors that fall under the supervision of industry regulators, to give serious consideration to the creation of an overarching Regulatory Appeals Panel that would consider appeals against regulatory decisions in all regulated sectors. We believe that this approach would be more cost-effective and would result in greater consistency and the building up of precedent and expertise. There is a precedent for such an arrangement in the UK, where the Competition Commission acts as an appeal body to hear appeals against the decisions of industry regulators.

We do not believe that appeals to the courts alone would represent a better option. It is widely recognised that the courts often lack the requisite expertise to hear substantive appeals against the complex technical decisions of industry regulators. On this basis, there is a clear need for substantive appeals against regulatory decisions to be heard in the first instance by a standing expert body. Naturally this would not prevent parties from appealing regulatory decisions on procedural grounds before the courts or seeking judicial review.

Dedicated Policy Unit for Digital Platforms

ntl strongly supports the proposal to establish such a unit to set policy for all digital platforms. To date, we do not believe that there has been a overall vision guiding digital broadcasting policy in Ireland. This has led to a number of confusing and conflicting messages being sent to the industry in relation to the government’s future intentions with regard to the mechanisms that it intends to utilise to implement the switchover from analogue to digital.

In the absence of a clear timetable and path to switchover, we believe that Ireland risks falling behind our EU counterparts and even developing countries like China and Mexico that have set firm dates for switching off the analogue signal. Furthermore, we do not believe that the risks that Ireland faces without a clear commitment to digital switchover have been fully appreciated by government or policymakers, as evidenced by the complete absence of discussion or recommendations on the issue in a recent Forfas report on the potential of the wireless industry in Ireland. Therefore, the proposed policy unit could play an important role in both contributing to awareness of this issue and drawing together the various strands of activity in this area of the Department, the BCI , ComReg and the industry and promoting a joined-up approach to digital switchover.

I hope that the Department will take these comments into consideration as it develops its policy in this area.

Yours sincerely

_____________

E. Brophy

Head of Regulatory & Public Affairs

ntl