NI-ICS interoperability

The use of Number-Independent Interpersonal Communication Services (NI-ICS) has drastically increased in recent years and they are now a key means of communication for many different users across Europe. These services show strong proprietary network effects, which are mainly due to the lack of interoperability.

In order to unleash and share such network effects among several providers, and thus facilitate market contestability, interoperability obligations for specific NI-ICS providers are included under Article 7 of the Regulation (EU) 2022/1925 of the European Parliament and of the Council on contestable and fair markets in the digital sector – the Digital Markets Act (DMA) – and, with a focus on ensuring end-to-end connectivity, under Article 61(2) of the Directive (EU) 2018/1972 of the European Parliament and of the Council establishing the European Electronic Communications Code – the EECC.

BEREC has been actively working on the interoperability of NI-ICS. 

The BEREC Report on interoperability of NI-ICS focuses on the potential technical approaches and the implementation challenges of interoperability measures, on the interplay between the EECC and the DMA, and presents a list of minimum criteria for the reference offer under the DMA.

Specifically in the context of the DMA, following the designation of Meta as a gatekeeper for, among others, its NI-ICS WhatsApp and Messenger, the European Commission has officially requested BEREC to prepare opinions to determine whether the technical details and the general terms and conditions published in the reference offers are compliant with the DMA. As of March 2025, BEREC has published three opinions on both the draft and the final version of the reference offer by Meta for the interoperability of WhatsApp, as well as on the reference offers by Meta for the interoperability of WhatsApp and Messenger.

Moreover, BEREC is a member of the DMA High-Level Group and assists the European Commission with the implementation of the DMA.