Private company to get access fees for publicly-owned telecom masts

THE consortium providing the new garda radio system will have to pay a private company in order to access publicly-owned telecommunications masts.

The company, Vilicom, will earn hundreds of thousands of euro from the deal.

On Monday, Tánaiste and Justice Minister Michael McDowell announced the Tetra Ireland consortium — consisting of Eircom, Motorola and Sigma Wireless — as the preferred bidder for provision of the National Digital Radio Service.

A pilot phase is under way, and if Tetra demonstrates it can meet garda requirements, the service will be rolled out nationwide within two years.

Once the nationwide roll-out begins, Tetra will need to access and place equipment on around 180 masts on garda properties and owned by the State.

In August 2003, the State appointed Vilicom to operate the licensing regime for mobile phone operators looking to install equipment on State property.

Any mobile phone operator looking to use the garda masts must seek a licence from Vilicom.

In the case of Tetra, the State has decided to waive the licence fees, as the radio service is a public contract. There is little point charging Tetra a licence fee as it would only inflate the consortium’s bill, which the State will ultimately pay.

But Tetra will still have to pay Vilicom the equivalent of access fees to place their equipment on the masts.

Vilicom CEO Colin Cunningham confirmed his company would charge Tetra access fees, but refused to say how much, citing commercial sensitivity.

He would only say the access fee per mast would be “less than €10,000“.

Based on a conservative estimate of €5,000 per mast, the company would earn about €900,000 from Tetra. If it was set at €9,000, Vilicom would earn about €1.6 million.

Mr Cunningham defended the fees, saying the one-off charges were required for site surveys and drawings, equipment certification, and planning and legal arrangements.

He said these fees were the “exact same” as for mobile phone operators looking to access masts.

Tetra will also have to pay Vilicom yearly maintenance or “upkeep” fees for each mast on which the consortium places equipment.

Mr Cunningham also refused to say how much the yearly maintenance fees would be, but insisted they were “not that onerous“.

In many cases, he said, the fee per mast would be diluted as several mobile phone operators would have equipment on the structure and pay the fee between them.