Brussels, 17/10/2012 (Agence Europe) - The European Commission has launched a public consultation to update the list of wholesale and retail telecommunications markets subject to ex-ante legislation, by virtue of the “article 7 procedure” of the telecoms directive. These markets cover retail access to the public telephone network and the wholesale supply of broadband access. The aim is to remove from the list of regulated markets those on which competition is now effective, or possibly to add other markets, such as those regulated at national level and trans-national markets. The Commissioner for the Digital Strategy, Neelie Kroes, points out that the European Commission needs to be informed of the technical evolutions which have taken place on the telecommunications market “so that regulation only focuses on persistent structural competition problems and facilitating investment”.
Under the European rules in force in the field of telecommunications, the Commission must regularly revise the recommendation on the markets for relevant products and services in the regulated sector of electronic communications, which was adopted in 2003 and which lists the markets governed by ex-ante regulations. This list allows the national regulatory authorities (NRA) to regulate their markets in a coordinated fashion. The member states are also called upon regularly to analyse their national markets, to verify the extent to which these are competitive, and to report back to the Commission on this, in line with the “article 7 procedure”. Following the first update of the recommendation in 2007, the list of 18 markets was reduced to seven, as most retail markets were removed from the list, allowing the Commission to focus on the main bottlenecks, which relate mainly to the wholesale markets. Currently, one retail market and six wholesale markets are still subject to ex-ante rules: fixed-line access to the public telephone network, fixed-line call origination on the public telephone network, fixed-line call termination on various individual public telephone networks, wholesale access to the local loop, wholesale provision of access to broadband, wholesale supply of terminating segments of leased lines and voice call termination on individual mobile networks.
The public consultation is the first stage of the second revision of the recommendation. On the basis of the results obtained and further consultation of the Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications (BEREC) and of the committee of communications (consultative committee made up of representatives of the member states), the Commission will adopt a revised recommendation. (IL/transl.fl)