BEREC launches public consultation on its 2017 Work Programme and publishes reports on challenges and drivers of NGA rollout and the migration to IP

Document number: BoR (16) 189

Document date: 10-10-2016

Date of registration: 10-10-2016

Document type:
Author: BEREC

BEREC held its third Plenary meeting of 2016 in Vilnius, Lithuania on 6-7 October, during which it approved its draft 2017 Work Programme for public consultation. The draft will be discussed at the BEREC Stakeholder Forum on 17 October in Brussels, and comments are invited by 2 November. Of particular note for next year will be BEREC’s input into the review of the electronic communications framework, draft proposals for which were published by the Commission on 14 September, and on which BEREC had a first exchange of views with the Commission during the Plenary meeting. The work programme will also cover the monitoring of the application of the net neutrality guidelines (adopted in August 2016 pursuant to the TSM Regulation), a report on mobile connectivity, and a scoping exercise for the review of the Common Positions on wholesale broadband access markets.

BEREC also adopted a report on challenges and drivers of NGA rollout and infrastructure competition , based on Member State case studies. The report identifies exogenous investment drivers (including roll-out costs and demand-side factors) and considers how regulators have used their regulatory toolbox to foster NGA-roll-out in the different national markets. The report will be a useful input into the debates around the review of the electronic communications framework.  

Following a public consultation which closed on 1 July 2016, BEREC adopted its Common Position (CP) on Layer 2 wholesale access products , together with a final report on the outcomes of the consultation. This CP defines technical characteristics, prices and conditions for the imposition of the wholesale products on markets 3a and 3b.

The third item adopted at the Plenary concerns the transition to IP on subscriber access lines , also based on case studies. The report provides an overview of the status of migration across a number of Member States, the impacts of migration on end users and wholesale services, and whether the migration was network- or customer-driven.

BEREC also adopted its latest annual report on regulatory accounting in practice, which provides a useful overview of the continued convergence of NRA accounting practices since data began to be collected in 2006.

Of particular interest (in light of the international roaming provisions of the TSM Regulation taking effect on 25 November 2015), BEREC published its latest benchmark report on international roaming, providing an overview of average wholesale and retail prices for voice, SMS and data roaming for the period between 1 October 2015 and 31 March 2016.

A full list of documents adopted at the Plenary is available here.

This was the third BEREC Plenary under the chairmanship of Wilhelm Eschweiler, Vice-President of German regulator BNetzA.