Norwegian telecoms regulator Nkom has declared that it will not be possible to decommission Norway's copper network before September 2025, because there is too great a distance between the parties for work on a migration plan to continue. Instead, it will resolve competition issues through its normal regulatory procedures, boosting its supervision of Telenor Norway’s obligations to alternative operators and considering new ones.
Einar Meling, senior advisor in Nkom’s competition department, said the watchdog had assessed submissions from parties affected by the copper shut-down as well as Telenor’s own suggestions, and decided it was not expedient to keep trying to establish a migration plan that Nkom could adopt. Even so, he said the work done so far and the comments received will be useful to its normal regulatory procedures.
Central to this, said Nkom, is the decision it took on 02 September 2020, forcing Telenor to keep making the copper access network available for up to five years. The regulator says this access remains important to alternative providers, and in future, its supervision will ensure that such access lines are not shut down.
Nkom said past consultations and meetings with operators on migration had shed light on potential relevant replacement products for copper-based access products, and on which parts of Telenor’s copper access network it might be possible to shut down without affecting competition. It will now assess what regulatory changes could be made to accommodate these conditions. Any changes to regulation that it might recommend will be put out to consultation in the standard manner, it assured.
