NGA network migration requires position on separation
The European Commission is currently planning a regulatory overhaul, the so-called Telecom Reform Package. The ongoing dominance of incumbent operators, with a combined market share of 71 percent, is worrying and unacceptable to EU telecoms commissioner Viviane Reding. At the same time, policymakers want to stimulate the migration to next-generation access (NGA) networks. Among the tools proposed by the European Commission is the power for national regulatory agencies to impose network separation on incumbent operators. The case for separation is quite straightforward: both government and industry acknowledge that FTTH is the goal, and yet the business case is difficult due to the large cost of rolling out new networks. Therefore, network duplication must be avoided and the physical layer may be termed a natural monopoly; all service providers must have equal (open) access, so the network must be separated from the services layer. However, is functional separation enough, or should there be full structural separation? In this brief we address the questions underlying this very crucial issue.
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