The Prague Morning newspaper writes that the country’s telecoms industry regulator, the Czech Telecommunication Office (CTU), plans to flex its muscles and impose an obligation on incumbent mobile network operators (MNOs) O2, T-Mobile and Vodafone to allow MVNOs access to their wholesale mobile services at a regulated price amid concerns that there is still limited competition in the overall mobile market. It is understood the regulation would apply after confirmation of notification by the European Commission – expected to be completed by mid-2022. A CTU spokesperson is quoted as saying: ‘The CTU found the market for wholesale access to mobile services suitable for ex-ante regulation and found companies with common significant market power’. The regulator recently completed an analysis of the mobile data market and found ‘a number of failures’, not least that the ‘wholesale price of data per MB transferred in the period 2015 to 2020 was always higher or at least equal to the retail price’. It reported that in 2020, the average retail price of 1MB of data stood at approximately CZK0.05 (USD0.002), while the average wholesale price was CZK0.09 (both prices excluding VAT), making it difficult for MVNOs to operate profitably and offer their customers similar prices for data bundles as can be offered by the big three MNOs.
In response, Vodafone accused the CTU of not respecting the European Commission decision from July 2019 when it refused to regulate the mobile market in the Czech Republic. Meanwhile, critics argue that despite talking tough, the regulator has again ignored the elephant in the room, namely the sharing of mobile networks between O2 (incl. CETIN) and T-Mobile.
Source: https://www.commsupdate.com/articles/2021/09/27/ctu-to-step-in-to-regulate-mobile-data-market/