BEREC Report on the location of the network termination point

Document number: BoR (18) 159

Document date: 04-10-2018

Date of registration: 10-10-2018

Document type:
Author: BEREC

According to the Universal Service Directive (2002/22/EC, recital 6), defining the location of the network termination point (NTP) is the responsibility of the national regulatory authority (NRA). The location of the NTP has an impact on whether an equipment is part of the public network or part of the telecommunications terminal equipment (TTE). For example, in case of an internet access service, depending on the location of the NTP, modem and router are either part of the public network (NTP location “C”) or router (NTP location “B”) or modem and router (NTP location “A”) are part of the TTE. Several legal provisions at the EU level are related to the topic “NTP”. For example, the term “NTP” is defined in the Framework Directive (2002/21/EC) and the Regulation (EU) 2015/2120 (Art. 3.1) provides for the end-users of internet access services the right to use the terminal equipment of their choice. Service providers, end-users and other market participants, however, may interpret these legal provisions differently with regard to the location of the NTP (i.e. whether the NTP is at point A, B, C or somewhere else). Disputes between end-users and network operators or service providers may arise and the national regulatory authority (NRA) may have to decide on the location of the NTP in these disputes. NRAs or other national authorities may also issue legal provisions (e.g. laws, regulations, guidelines) which provide further information on the location of the NTP in general, i.e. for all NTPs. NRAs may also impose on the operator with significant market power (SMP) the obligation to offer wholesale access products and the characteristics of these products may also have an impact on the location of the NTP.

The aim of the report is to foster the knowledge transfer between NRAs and to get a deeper insight in the legal provisions of NRAs (and also of other national authorities) in the EU on the location of the (fixed and mobile) NTP with the following objectives:to give an overview of the definition of the NTP location in the EU with regard to legal power of NRAs, decisions taken by NRAs in individual disputes and legal provisions of NRAs and other national authorities;to analyse the legal provisions (e.g. law, regulation, guidelines) of NRAs or other national authorities which define the NTP location in general (i.e. for all NTPs); and to examine Layer 2/Layer 3 wholesale access products imposed by NRAs with regard to characteristics which may have an impact on the NTP location.The analysis is descriptive and does not aim to be normative or to recommend best practices.