A Symmetrical Regulation for an Intensified Very High Broadband Deployment

Abstract

After two decades of regulations promoting competition in the European telecommunications sector, the European Commission has announced it will soon be revised. From former monopolies to intense competition on the broadband and very high broadband markets, the landscape has changed drastically since the regulatory framework was implemented. Taking into account the objectives and priorities of the new Commission, the revision of the regulatory framework will have to assess the current regulation’s outcome in respect to competition and investment and its possible drawbacks in that respect. Mobile only operators weakened in a fixed‐mobile converging world, debatable concepts like the “ladder of investments”, challenges such as the definition and characteristics of network access services and unbalanced interconnection fee flows are some of the elements to be considered. At the end of the review, in a forward‐looking view, the Commission will have to modernise the framework to better suit the current and future telecommunications landscapes. The evolution of this market must be sustained by heavy and continuous investment, especially in new generation networks, that demands an optimal level of competition for these investments to occur. Such an optimal level of competition promotes investment, giving rise to the continuous integration of advanced technologies and, as a result, reducing network capacity unit costs and ultimately unit prices. All the elements gathered lead us to propose a high priority for the new framework, namely investment in new networks and the adaptation of the regulatory rules in line with this objective. The level of competition and the continuous need for investments call for a move from the current asymmetric regulation, based on the SMP concept, to a symmetric one, to regulate fixed network access and interconnections, better suited and less intrusive for the benefit of the consumer and the European digital economy. Furthermore, the mobile market