- The European Commission is proposing to relax the regulation on incumbent national fixed network operators
- Deregulation of wholesale fixed access services would be a ‘backwards step’, state competitive operators
- Vodafone, Iliad, Colt, Bouygues Telecom and 1&1 are among those calling for the preservation of the current model
A group of major European fibre and broadband network operators, including Vodafone and Iliad, has called the European Commission’s proposals for the deregulation of wholesale fixed network services as a “backwards step” that would “lead to re-monopolisation and stifle competition and investment in fixed connectivity services, particularly during the migration from copper to fibre,” and has called for a rethink by lawmakers.
The heads of the nine operators – Bouygues Telecom, Colt Technology Services, Eurofiber, Fastweb+Vodafone, Iliad Group, Open Fiber, Three Group, 1&1 AG and Vodafone Group – that collectively operate fixed networks serving about 240 million customers across the European Union’s 27 member states, have signed an open statement. In it, they argue that any such move, proposed as part of the EC’s Digital Networks Act, would lessen the investment case for competitive fixed network investments in Europe, suppress future take up of services by consumers and businesses, inhibit network innovation, and make it more challenging for the EC to achieve its Digital Decade 2030 targets.
