Page 97 - SAMENA Trends - May 2020

REGULATORY & POLICY UPDATES SAMENA TRENDS

ACM To Be Given Increased Powers To Monitor Fixed Telecoms Competition

The Netherlands’ Authority for Consumers & Markets (ACM)
welcomed a new legislative bill passed by the House of
Representatives designed to expand the regulator’s capabilities
in monitoring fixed telecoms network competition. Proposed
amendments to the Telecommunications Act will give the
watchdog new regulatory instruments which ACM said will help
to ‘ensure that parties wishing to become active in the telecom
market have access to a fixed telecom network’, adding that
the development ‘contributes to better functioning markets,
lower prices, more innovation and better services for people
and companies’. ACM board member Manon Leijten stated that
‘the new legislation will give [ACM] more opportunities to give
telecom providers without their own network access to a fixed
network, if this is necessary for the market to function properly’’
On 17 March 2020 the Netherlands’ apex administrative law
court the Trade & Industry Appeals Tribunal (College van Beroep
voor het bedrijfsleven, CBb) overturned ACM’s 2018 Wholesale
Fixed Access market analysis which had mandated incumbent
PSTN operator KPN and cableco VodafoneZiggo to provide
wholesale access to their fixed networks. Due to the CBb’s ruling
VodafoneZiggo withdrew its wholesale network access offer, while
KPN continued to provide a range of wholesale fibre and copper
access options but has discontinued certain additional wholesale
offers imposed in the annulled ACM decision. Consequently, ACM
says it is examining ‘whether the position of providers without
their own network is sufficiently secured’. ACM’s latest statement
added that it ‘sees risks to competition in the fixed telecom market
if telecom providers without their own network do not gain access
to the KPN and VodafoneZiggo networks on reasonable terms
[and it] therefore closely follows the developments in the market
and explores the various options in the Telecommunications Act
and the Competition Act to intervene if services for consumers and companies deteriorate due to a lack of competition.’

GSMA Warns on Grave Impact of Reserving Spectrum

Authorities which set aside core 5G spectrum. Privately-licensed allocations, for effective collaboration. Other viable
spectrum assets for private use by it added, risked being underused and options highlighted include carefully
vertical industries risk slowing operator compromised fair spectrum allocation planned spectrum-sharing policies for
deployments, reducing coverage and processes. Instead, the GSMA urged those wanting to build private networks,
hampering performance of the new authorities to allow mobile operators or spectrum leasing. It also cited the
technology across their countries, the to meet the growing needs of industry. importance of using unlicensed spectrum
GSMA warned. In a paper outlining the “Mobile operators already support for numerous verticals. The process of
mobile industry’s position on use of 4G verticals and can deliver private networks allocating spectrum to industries varies
and 5G spectrum for vertical industries, the with dedicated spectrum where needed,” from market to market. France, for example,
association noted in the 5G era regulators it argued. “Regulators can also tailor is set to exclusively allocate to mobile
faced pressure for access to spectrum their normal award approach to meet the operators, while German authorities were
in key bands from a range of business needs of verticals without undermining heavily criticized by incumbent Deutsche
sectors. It cautioned setting aside these 5G more widely.” As an example, it cited a Telekom for creating an artificial shortage
assets would have wider consequences recent move in Finland where authorities of 5G spectrum by reserving allocations
for national access, noting the situation assigned the whole of the 3.5GHz band for private business.
would be “especially grave” in countries to mobile operators, with a regulatory
with a shortage of accessible mid-band framework in place providing the base

97 MAY 2020