Notice of launch of Public consultation on the draft BEREC Guidelines on Geographical surveys of network deployments

Document number: BoR (19) 214

Document date: 10-10-2019

Date of registration: 10-10-2019

Document type:
Author: BEREC

The draft BEREC Guidelines on Geographical surveys of network deployments were approved for public consultation at the 40th BEREC ordinary meeting that took place in Crete, Greece, between 2-4 of October 2019.

According to Article 22 of the EECC, NRAs and/or other competent authorities shall conduct a geographical survey of the reach of electronic communications networks capable of delivering broadband (“broadband networks”) by 21 December 2023 and shall update it at least every 3 years.

The guidelines submitted are designed in accordance with Art. 22 of the EECC and intended to provide guidance to NRAs/OCAs on common approaches to develop this GS. NRAs/OCAs shall take utmost account of these Guidelines when developing these surveys.

The guidelines consist of seven sections. The first section includes specific definitions to be considered for the purpose of these Guidelines. A second section specifies the sources of information for the GS.

The section “Geographical Spatial resolution of data” specifies the spatial resolutions to be used for data collection for fixed and mobile broadband networks. The guidelines define that for fixed networks two different resolution levels are allowed: address level and, temporarily, 100x100 m grid level (or similar polygon). For mobile networks, the resolution should be (at least) a 100x100 m grid (or equivalent polygon).

The section “Elements of characterization of network connectivity or services” describes the types of information that the NRA/OCA must attain in order to characterize the reach and performance of broadband networks. This includes a normalized structured subset of the data detailed in the subsections.

-           For fixed broadband the guidelines distinguish the data requirements on the type of resolution approach chosen by the NRA/OCA: whether there is a precision at the address level or grid level.

-           For mobile broadband the document presents a proposal for characterization of the reach of the mobile broadband network.

The “Data and characterization of a GIS system” section provides information how to start the mapping process and which data are relevant to these Guidelines.

The section “Forecast specificities” provides a series of recommendations on the information to request in order to implement surveys of forecasts of broadband reach that are relevant for the needs of the regulatory and policy functions referenced in Article 22.

Finally, the last section provide guidance regarding the publication, confidentiality and aggregation of data to provide information to third users.

During this public consultation stakeholders will be requested to provide comments to the Guidelines and, in particular, answer four questions concerning speed calculation, information requirements, the need to collect performance information and the need to define thresholds for key parameters.

Stakeholders are invited to submit their inputs by 21 November 2019 17:00 CET to [email protected].  Please provide comments to the Draft Guidelines and responses to the questions included within those.  Further enquiries about the consultation may also be submitted to this address.

The overall size of the e-mail (including attachments) should not be larger than 2 MB. 

After submitting the contribution via e-mail, an automatic reply will be generated. If this confirmation e-mail is not received, the submission of the contribution was not successful and it should be submitted again.

We strongly encourage all stakeholders to submit their contributions as early as possible. Contributions received after the above mentioned deadline will not be taken into account.

Contributions should preferably be sent in English. 

All contributions will be published on the BEREC website, taking into account requests for confidentiality and publication of personal data. Any such requests should be clearly indicated as: “Consider this contribution as confidential” or, if submitted via e-mail, by clearly stating which information is considered confidential. 

Please note that it is also possible to submit both a confidential and a public version of your contribution on the email address: [email protected] .