European Incumbents Might Control 80% of NGNs, Survey Warns
ECTA, an organisation representing non-incumbent European telecommunications providers, called for stronger powers for regulators to implement competition rules this week, as it published the results of its bi-yearly survey on broadband take-up and competitiveness in Europe on its website.
The survey shows that while one in five people in Europe now subscribe to a broadband connection, competitive impetus has reduced across Europe, with the retail market share of incumbents persisting at close to 50 per cent and slow growth of 10 per cent in broadband connections.
The survey also reveals that there is a serious threat to the primary source of competition – local loop unbundling – as incumbents seek a moratorium on unbundling next generation fiber access lines. If granted, this could result in incumbent operators controlling a staggering 80 per cent of broadband lines across Europe or even close to 100 per cent in many countries.
Innocenzo Genna, Chairman of ECTA said, “People often do not realize that the choice they have of broadband provider and speeds and prices available depends on how effectively the regulator has opened up the last mile of the network to competitors. Policymakers ignore this at their peril, because the choice we have today may be gone tomorrow if we do not act to keep telecoms markets open, and Europe’s competitiveness is at stake.”
ECTA believes that the European telecoms market is reaching a critical stage as the existing legacy copper network is gradually replaced partly or wholly with next generation fiber lines.
Genna added, “Because fixed networks are particularly expensive to build it is not always economical to duplicate the last mile – the line going into each home – because it will push up the retail cost of broadband and may not be justifiable to financial investors. Instead what we need is a mechanism to share bottleneck access infrastructure on an equal basis. Functional separation could be a way to enforce infrastructure sharing rules more easily.”
Read more (scroll down to 2nd page of the document…)
See also: ECTA’s Broadband Scorecard
Source: ECTA
More: EC to make fibre “recommendation”
Related: Europe: Number of FttH Subscribers Surpasses 1 Million
