Brussels, 26/06/2009 (Agence Europe) - “It is not the role of the Commission to take sides between incumbents or new entrants; but to make sure that there is effective competition in a single market that triggers investment, innovation and consumer benefits.” Information Society and the Media Commissioner Viviane Reding said on Thursday 25 June, at a conference organised by ECTA (European Competitive Telecommunications Association), which represents the interests of new entrants, that the key interest for tomorrow's digital Europe was to develop next generation access (NGA) networks and to develop a consistent European strategy for the internet of the future (very high speed). Highlighting that current telecoms rules had worked well and had brought greater competition, the commissioner said that she was not gong to turn her back on ex-ante regulation. “The last thing we need is new monopolies, and the poverty and artificial scarcity of services that would inevitably go with it,” she said. To encourage NGA investment in a pro-competitive environment, the Commission makes four recommendations, she went on (Ed: these recommendations are currently out for consultation, see EUROPE 9922): 1) national regulatory authorities should be free to determine the best strategy for local loop unbundling, given the wide differences in NGA deployment in member states; 2) that access prices imposed by the national regulator on dominant firms should be duly adjusted for risk, mainly - but not only - by means of a higher risk premium; 3) that regulators support partnerships set up for deployment of networks if they serve to diversify the initial investment risk into FTTH (Fibre-to-the-Home) networks, or if they result in infrastructure-based competition; 4) that a “migration path” be clearly defined for alternative operators, so that they can adapt to the changed world.
Responding to the comments, from both incumbent operators, who feel that the regulatory framework will still be too inflexible to encourage NGA investment, and new entrants, who believe that dominant operators will be allowed too much freedom (see EUROPE 9924), the commissioner said: “What I think this shows is that the draft recommendation … cannot be categorised simplistically as being pro-incumbent of pro-alternative operator”. In the coming weeks, the Commission will carry out an in-depth assessment of the comments submitted to fine tune parts of its recommendations, Reding added.
In a press release, ETNO (European Telecommunications Network Operators' Association) says that, in its proposals, the Commission “does not exploit the mechanisms included by the European Parliament and Council in the revised (Telecoms package) directives to improve investment incentives and instead extends current cost-based access rules to new networks, except for very specific scenarios” (for example, the deployment of multiple fibres by the dominant operator could be a reason for less tight regulatory obligations). According to a source close to ETNO, the Commission is insisting on this hypothetical scenario to hide the fact that, overall, the draft is more favourable to new entrants and does not encourage risk-sharing agreements which reward operators which invest, agreements which ought to be pushed by the recommendation. (I.L./transl.rt)