Public consultation 05/10 on the draft BEREC report on relevant market definition for busines sservices

Run from 11 October to 19 November 2010

In December 2009 the European Regulators Group (ERG) published a report for consultation on the issue of wholesale access regulation associated with the provision of fixed retail services for highend business services. The consultation did not draw definitive conclusions, but found a number of areas of concern with regard  to remedies that required further investigation.

In that respect in March 2010 BEREC published a report on the conclusions from the afore-mentioned consultation. On the basis of thorough analysis of the contribution received, BEREC concluded that there was need to further study the issues related to market definition of busines sservices.

Therefore, on 11 October 2010 BEREC published for public consultation a draft report on relevant market definition for business services. The objectives of the draft were to analyse:

• potential justifications for produc tmarket segmentation to reflect differences between “highend” and “standard” needs (other potential justifications for remedies differentiation in case that any differences are not so significant so as to be reflected on the market definition);
• the  need  to  consider  how  demand  side  factors,  for  example  demand  at multiple geographic locations might impact the assessment of possible differences in competitive conditions between “highend” and  “standard” services.

The consultation was closed on 19 November 2010.

In that period BEREC received 7 individual contributions from: BT, Colt, ECTA, ETNO, INTUG, Orange France Telecom Group and Telecom Italia.

Following the closing of the consultation period BEREC analysed the contributions and prepared a BEREC report on the public consultation on relevant market definition for business services, which outlines the main comments received and explains how BEREC has taken them into account.

The final BEREC report on relevant market definition for business services, which take into account the contributions received during the public consultation can be consulted here.

You can download the full history of the public consultation here.