ART launches a public consultation on costing methodologies for the local loop

Paris, 14 April 2005

Autorité de Régulation des Télécommunications (ART) submitted yesterday to the European Commission and its European counterparts its draft decision (no. 05-0277) regarding the obligations imposed on France Telecom as an operator with significant power on the wholesale market for unbundled access to the local copper loop and subloop.

As concerns the price control remedy, the draft decision states that France Telecom's tariffs must be cost oriented.

The purpose of this consultation is to determine the most appropriate way to establish the costs of the local copper loop.

The consultation is open until 31 May 2005.

In addition to contributions from operators, ART plans to collect comments and contributions from economists and practitioners in the financial and accounting fields. It will also consult international experts and comparable works conducted by its European counterparts.

Upon completion of this phase, at which time a summary of the contributions will be drafted, ART will decide how to determine the costs of the local copper loop. This decision, which will be notified to the European Commission, will consequently allow updating of the LLU calculation rules which are currently defined in ART decisions 00-1171 and 05-0267.

Implementation of this decision will require the collection and processing of all relevant data for the method eventually chosen, with a planned completion by autumn 2005.