S-which company to believe? Telcos engage war of words over landlines

Friday 15 May 2015

Telecoms operator Sure has attacked JT for "being obstructive" before the landline market is opened up to all. But JT has fought back - claiming that Sure is making "commercial capital".

All operators will be able to offer landlines from 1 June but Sure says that JT's switchover rate - whose monopoly of landlines will come to an end - is too slow and "can only be seen to be anti-competitive practice by a company that is desperate to hold onto as many customers as possible".

But JT accuse Sure of "unilaterally starting to raise customer expectations by suggesting the process to switch would be almost instant".

Sure says it has already seen 1,000 customers place orders to switch to Sure but claim that JT says it will only be able to process 20 orders per day at launch.

Sure Chief Executive Officer Graham Hughes said: “There’s no doubt in my mind that JT are being obstructive in their plans for the introduction of competition in the landline market. We have worked with the CI Competition and Regulatory Authorities and JT to smoothly transition to a competitive market place but JT has resorted to anti-competitive practices in order to slow the transfer of customers to Sure.

“We are aware that CICRA shares our frustration with JT, which claims to be able to transfer only 20 lines a day. This means that it could take around ten weeks to clear just the initial orders from our own customers, and we haven’t even started marketing to the wider public yet!"

But JT's Director of Corporate Affairs, Daragh McDermott called the Sure claims "hype".

"This is a new process and so JT is taking what we believe to be a much more responsible position so that customers aren't let down. The switching process will undoubtedly get quicker as it beds in but at the start there might be a short delay while the applications are worked through - that's all.

"The last thing customers want is a spat between two telcos, so we are simply saying that we will start off cautiously to minimise errors, and then increase the rate as soon as we can"