Paris, 28th January 2008 On 19th December 2007, ARCEP launched a public consultation on "the analysis of the wholesale high-speed and very high-speed markets". |
Paris, 19th december 2007
Its first cycle of market analyses led ARCEP to establish regulations for high speed for the period 2005-2008. These measures, which are applicable until 1st May of next year, focus on two wholesale offers—unbundling and bitstream—which France Telecom is required to provide alternative operators through two reference offers.
• Very high speed: regulating France Telecom’s civil engineering / High speed: overall renewal of the existing measures
Today, ARCEP is launching a new cycle of analyses, covering the period from 2008 to 2011, and covering both high speed and very high speed. The main change proposed is the application of regulation of France Telecom’s civil engineering, which is an infrastructure essential to alternative operators in deploying a fibre optic local loop.
On high speed, ARCEP proposes renewing the existing measure, adapting it to take account of past and future changes on the market: the expanding retail offers, especially through broadcasting services, the increasing demand for service quality from consumers, the extension of collection networks, migration to Ethernet, etc.
• Asymmetrical regulation, applying only to powerful operators
The document submitted to public consultation reviews the regulation established during the first cycle. It also sets as its starting point the European Commission’s new recommendation on relevant markets, which was published on 13 November. More specifically, the analysis deals with the two high-speed markets chosen by the Commission: the wholesale market for access to physical infrastructures (market 4) and the wholesale market for activated offers (market 5).
The market analysis is part of asymmetrical regulation, applied specifically to powerful operators, France Telecom in this case. In the case of very high speed, ARCEP has stated that it wishes to set up an additional measure to ensure the terminal part is shared. This measure would apply to all operators (symmetrical regulation) and not only to powerful operators. It is therefore not covered by this public consultation.
The document is submitted for public consultation until 1st February 2008 at 5:00 pm. Responses must be sent to the following e-mail address: mhd@arcep.fr.
This document, along with players’ contributions, will then be sent to the Conseil de la concurrence for its opinion.
