Mobistar is under pressure in the Belgian market. On the mobile markt, it will be the number three behind Proximus and Telenet, once the latter absorbs Base. And access to the fixed-line market has been a long journey. A hybrid strategy, based on access to both Proximus (for broadband) and TV Vlaanderen (for a television feed), was abandonded after administrative headaches around service delivery. Then Mobistar diverted its attention to cable. At first successfully, gaining regulatory support, but now in a prolonged fight over wholesale fees. (On a side note: Telenet's resistance against the recently lowered wholesale fees could fire back at it when it needs to defend its takeover of Base in front of Belgium's regulators. Telenet may better embrace wholesale as an attractive secondary market, and at the same time appease regulators.)
And so the question remains: how to 'fix' the Belgian market and what remains left to do for Mobistar? Assuming that the Telenet/Base merger will go ahead, a few options are left, besides continuing on the current path - which is probably the mostly likely outcome.
First of all, Mobistar. The company apparently pursues a converged strategy, aiming for access to cable networks. At the same time, it could develop a mobile-centric strategy, preferably under a different brand name. Parent company Orange may be willing to license its brand. Then it only remains to be seen which brand best suits a quad pay offering and which brand could best be used for a mobile-only offering.
From a regulatory point of view, structural separation could be considered as a remedy. If indeed Telenet and Base merge, there will be a serious risk of 'joint dominance' of the market, together with Proximus. Of course, improving the terms and conditions of Proximus's wholesale portfolio would be a solution, but it would still leave the competition far behind. In the UK, the structural separation scenario is under consideration at Ofcom, as part of its five year market review. Mobistar has given up on buying wholesale access to the Proximus fixed-line network, and structural separation could be the only realistic, albeit very far-reaching, solution.
