Page 160 - SAMENA Trends - July-August 2022

REGULATORY & POLICY UPDATES SAMENA TRENDS

The Communications Regulatory Authority (Autorita per other firms to deploy networks in underserved areas. In
le Garanzie nelle Comunicazioni, Agcom) has given the April WINDTRE said it would transfer 7,000 rural mobile
green light to a proposed joint venture between WINDTRE towers and around 50 employees to a new networks
and Iliad which will deploy a shared mobile network in subsidiary and Iliad would then acquire a 50% stake,
Italy rural areas of the country. The watchdog says there are with the JV used to build the shared 5G infrastructure.
The towers cover around 25% of Italy’s population.
no issues regarding competition, saying the tie-up will
be of benefit to rural customers and could encourage (August 10, 2022) www.commsupdate.com

The Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications plans for further spectrum allocations. In a keynote,
(MIC) has issued an administrative guidance to Atsushi Umino, Deputy Director-General for International
mobile network operator (MNO) KDDI Corp, ordering Digital Infrastructure Promotion at Japan’s Ministry
it to take measures to prevent a repeat of the recent of International Affairs and Communications set the
Japan network failure that left more than 30.91 million KDDI target of achieving 98 per cent 5G population coverage
nationwide by end-March 2024. Japan plans to begin
customers without services for 61 hours. The outage –
which was sparked after KDDI initiated routine network assigning spectrum in the 2.3GHz band later this year
maintenance – occurred on 2 July and lasted until 4 and triple allocations across all compatible bands in
July. On 3 August the MIC took the ‘rare’ decision to 2025. Umino added the government will also introduce
issue the MNO with a warning to ensure it does not a process for prioritizing remote areas currently
happen again. ‘We took the incident extremely seriously unsuited for commercial base station deployments and
as it was longer and more widespread than past network provide financial support to promote 5G development,
disruptions,’ said telecoms minister Yasushi Kaneko in with the aim of closing the coverage gap. In addition,
handing out the written guidance. The minister went it will promote infrastructure sharing by setting subsidy
on to state that KDDI ‘should make the utmost efforts requirements for operators. The government also
to avoid a recurrence with the full awareness that it laid out plans to decentralize data centers to improve
plays a crucial role in supporting essential societal resilience and add redundancy. Tokyo houses 60 per
infrastructure’. Meanwhile, in the wake of the network cent of Japan’s data centers: the government plans to
failure the MIC is drawing up new telecom policy, due build more than 12 regional data centers over the next
by end-2022, to ensure end users will remain connected five years. The initiatives are part of efforts unveiled in
in an outage by allowing them to connect to another March to boost cooperation between the public and
operator’s network. (August 4, 2022) www.commsupdate.com private sectors to revitalize rural economies, which have
faced depopulation as people migrate to major cities
Japan prepared for an expected surge in demand for for employment, Umino explained.
data traffic once full 5G deployment is reached by (August 3, 2022) www.mobileworldlive.com
upping its near-term coverage targets and outlining

The Jersey Competition Regulatory Authority (JCRA) for the supply of wholesale leased lines enabling
has concluded a review of competition in the market other licensed operators to migrate services while
for business connectivity, and ruled that fixed line also providing greater transparency and certainty
incumbent JT will be required to take further steps to for all business users’. Commenting on the matter,
Jersey open up the wholesale market to other operators and Peter Hetherington, Senior Economic Case Officer for
will continue to be subject to price controls. According the JCRA, said: ‘Business connectivity services are
to the regulator, by directing JT to supply wholesale vital in supporting the Jersey economy and ensuring
leased lines to other operators, it is ‘promoting effective it continues to grow and remain competitive. This
competition and choice in the market’. Of note, the consultation was an extremely important and valuable
JCRA has confirmed that the price at which JT can exercise that has resulted in better competition in
offer wholesale leased lines to other operators is to the business connectivity market that will lead to
be capped at 31% below the retail price, which it said increased choice, lower prices, and improved benefits
equates to a further reduction of 11% on JT’s current for customers.’
wholesale prices. Meanwhile, the regulator claims to (July 20, 2022) commsupdate.com
have developed ‘a more robust regulatory framework

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