Brussels, 06/05/2013 (Agence Europe) - On 3 May, the European Commission expressed serious doubts over a draft measure notified by the Austrian telecoms regulator (RTR) on the wholesale market for terminating segments of leased lines - the final part of the network. Leased lines are dedicated connections (private circuits) for transmission of voice and data used by operators to deliver telecommunications services, usually used by businesses to connect geographically distant offices. European Digital Strategy Commissioner Neelie Kroes said that the RTR project created competition concerns and added: “EU businesses should be able to enjoy the best offers in a competitive environment. I urge RTR to come up with a new proposal that ensures a level playing field for all operators”.
Under RTR's proposal, high bandwidths of leased lines, including those provided so far under competitive conditions in municipalities such as Vienna, Linz, Graz, Salzburg, Innsbruck, Wels, Feldkirch, Steyr, Klagenfurt, Dornbirn, Bregenz and Hallein should be regulated from July 2013. This concerns, in particular, high bandwidth leased lines (above 34 mbit/second) provided by incumbent A1 Austria Telekom. The Commission underlines that competition seems to be more sustained in the high bandwidth segment of this market where there are alternative operators present and where the incumbent A1 Austria Telekom appears to have a negligible market share (less than 15%). Reintroducing regulation after a number of years in which wholesale leased lines have been bought at competitive conditions could seriously damage the business plans of alternative operators who would then be forced to offer more attractive access conditions to compete with the regulated services of the incumbent, explained the Commission. RTR now has two months to work with the Commission and the body of European telecoms regulators (BEREC) on a solution to this case. In the meantime implementation of the proposal has been suspended. (IL/transl.fl)