The Dutch corporate appeals court has overturned telecoms regulator Opta's decisions requiring the country's leading cable networks to resell their analogue TV packages to competitors. The Opta decisions date from March 2009 and cover the markets for wholesale radio and TV transmission over the networks at UPC Netherlands, Ziggo, Delta and CAIW. While Opta analysed the markets on a regional level, based on each operator's footprint, the four cable companies argued that the analysis should have looked at the national market. The appeals court ruled that the Opta did not prove a clear variation in competitive conditions in each operator's footprint area. As a result, the requirement for Ziggo and UPC to provide a wholesale analogue TV package to other operators is no longer valid. UPC, Ziggo, CAIW and Delta will also no longer be required to carry digital broadcasts from alternative TV providers on their networks.
Ziggo said it was pleased with the ruling and will revisit its agreement with Tele2 Netherlands on reselling the TV services. UPC said the ruling shows that competition on the Dutch TV market was already strong. Tele2 expects Opta to quickly revise the decisions. The operator has contracts for three months with UPC and Ziggo, and said that for the moment it will continue to offer the analogue TV service. Tele2 said it was a shame for consumers, who for the first time had a choice, while Opta said it also finds the ruling disappointing for consumers. The consumers union called on the government to intervene to improve competition on the cable market. The union said that alternative TV services, such as satellite, DTT and IPTV, offer a different quality of service and programming, making them uncomparable with cable. KPN and YouCa, two additional candidates for taking up the wholesale cable offering, said they are still studying the ruling, while T-Mobile's Online, which planned to introduce a cable offer this year, said it expects Opta to amend the decision allowing the market to remain open.
