P1754    Regulation and the telecommunications infrastructure evolution in Europe 

Regulation and Telecommunications Infrastructure Evolution in Europe

October 2008

Abstract:

The European Commission’s regulatory policy in the last years has very much guided access network evolution in Europe, favouring the opening up of the infrastructure for new and alternative providers. As a consequence of this policy, the market has become more competitive - broadband access became widespread and affordable, and services have improved. However, approaches focused on the reuse of the copper infrastructure resulted in little investment in new optical access build-outs, necessary to respond to the growing demand for bandwidth consuming services, like video, online gaming, virtual reality applications, etc. Recent regulatory developments indicate that new measures will insist on the opening up of any infrastructures to other providers, including newly built optical ones, likely leaving investors and infrastructure owners  in an asymmetrically disadvantageous position, discouraging investment by significantly weakening incentives and ultimately their business cases. The present study identifies important issues and possible impacts of the regulatory regime on the direction in which access networks will technically evolve in Europe, how it affects the speed of the necessary technology change and how it impacts operators business, and overall European competitiveness, in general. The document analyses current broadband access technologies and trends, the new and emerging services that will stress the access network, and the regulatory approaches and means to make market to function in an effective way from an economic and social perspective. Finally, the long term impact of selected regulatory means - local loop unbundling and functional separation of incumbent telecom operators is analysed and their impact on access network evolution, emergence of new broadband services, business sustainability and practical implementation issues is outlined.
 

Applicability:

Executives and decision makers, business analysts, strategists and marketing experts.