Brussels, 14/10/2013 (Agence Europe) - A study carried out by Ecorys Netherlands, at the request of the European Commission, advises that fewer telecoms markets should be included on the Commission's list than under current EU rules and suggests that no new markets should be added. This advice will feed into the Commission's reflection begun last year with the launch of public consultations on 17 October, as a follow-up to the review of the 2007 Recommendation. The Commissioner for the Digital Agenda, Neelie Kroes stated that, “The findings of the study will help us to update the list of the relevant markets, which will shape the scope of national regulatory interventions in the coming years”.
The study, carried out by the independent experts explains that:
The retail market for access to fixed telephony (market 1 in the Recommendation) and the wholesale market for call origination on the fixed public telephone network (market 2) do not meet the three criteria test and should be removed from the list;
Fixed and mobile termination markets (markets 3 and 7) should be maintained on the list;
The boundaries of the local loop unbundling market (market 4) should be refined and clarified;
Two separate wholesale markets for bitstream access (currently market 5) should be defined to better respond to the different needs observed at the retail level of mass and business market;
The report suggests that it should be up to individual national regulators to consider whether the wholesale business bitstream market should form a single market with the terminating segments of leased lines (market 6 in the Recommendation).
The 2007 Recommendation includes a list of retail and wholesale telecommunications markets subject to ex-ante legislation, in compliance with procedures as defined by “Article 7” in the “Telecoms” directive. These markets include retail access to the public telephony network and the provision of wholesale broadband access. The review aims to remove currently competitive markets from the list of regulated markets and possibly include other markets on the list. Following the first update in 2007 of the recommendation (which dates back to 2003), the list of 18 markets was reduced to 7 (1 retail market and 6 wholesale markets). Most of the retail markets were removed from the list so that the Commission could focus on the bottlenecks mainly affecting the wholesale markets. The Commission will now work out a proposal for a second review to be submitted to the Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications (BEREC). (IL/transl.fl)