ECTA Backs Plans European Commission on NGN Access
ECTA, the European Competitive Telecommunications Association, today congratulated the European Commission for proposing a package that will accelerate Europe’s broadband development by giving national regulators the tools to break down monopolies and deliver consistent results across the single market.
Key elements of the so-called Framework Review are functional separation, the extended definition of access to include fiber and the commitment to deliver a truly single market.
The pro-competition body, representing Europe’s competitive operators, has long argued that Europe’s national regulators must be fully empowered to address persistent and intransigent anti-competitive behavior by incumbent operators, which has resulted in a wide gap within the EU in telecoms investment and broadband take-up.
Clear signals given against regulatory holidays on next generation fiber access and the inclusion by the Commission of Functional Separation in the Regulatory Framework are particularly positive – according to ECTA – and come despite intense lobbying by large dominant firms.
A proposed Electronics Communications Authority, bringing together Europe’s 27 national regulators, could also be of real benefit in harnessing the experience of national regulators to deliver effective results across Europe.
Mr. Innocenzo Genna, Chairman of ECTA, said, “We believe this to be a strong package overall and one that will result in tangible growth in investment and competition in high speed broadband across Europe. The proposed Framework provides the tools, including Functional Separation and the extension of access markets to include fiber, to ensure the smooth roll-out of Next Generation Networks, and the sharing of the substantial costs required to deliver them.”
Mr. Genna added, “Europe could today have been a worldwide broadband leader if regulators had all succeeded in opening their broadband markets. And equally Europe could tomorrow fall below its more competitive global rivals if it fails to address firmly bottlenecks preventing competition in the next phase of high speed broadband services.”
He continued, “That makes the combined approach of assessing fiber networks – and providing a tool of functional separation for regulators to address enduring bottlenecks to competition – all the more important.”
“The future of the European telecoms industry and the businesses and consumers that depend on it is now in the hands of the Council and the Parliament, and we hope they will take note,” Mr. Genna said.
Source: ECTA
