The Commission for Communications Regulation (ComReg) has today published three related Decisions arising from its review of two key wholesale broadband access markets. These wholesale access markets enable a range of service providers to compete in other wholesale and retail markets, ultimately enabling them to provide various retail services, including broadband, telephony and TV services to consumers.
These markets are known as the Wholesale Local Access (WLA) and Wholesale Central Access (WCA) markets. In summary ComReg has concluded that deregulation is justified for about half the country – mostly in urban areas – in the Wholesale Central Access market. This is because of increased competition in these areas. ComReg has decided that Eircom still has Significant Market Power (SMP) in the WLA market and Regional WCA market and is therefore subject to regulation.
ComReg has imposed a range of obligations on Eircom in these markets which are intended to make it easier for telecoms operators to use Eircom’s wholesale services. In addition ComReg has reviewed Eircom’s pricing of its wholesale services and has inter alia imposed a rental price reduction of 15% from €23.00 to €19.54 per month for an important high speed broadband wholesale service provided over its Fibre to the Cabinet (FTTC) platform known as Virtual Unbundled Access (VUA).
Commenting on the Decisions, Commissioner Jeremy Godfrey stated that “These wide-ranging Decisions, which are the culmination of detailed reviews, in consultation with industry and other stakeholders, will continue to provide regulatory certainty for all market players and set the necessary conditions for sustainable competition and ongoing network investment. ComReg will be closely monitoring market developments to ensure that consumers can benefit in terms of the price, choice and quality of fixed broadband services”.
All the related ComReg documents (18/94, 18/95 and 18/96) are available on the publications section of the ComReg website.
