BoR (11) 06b BEREC report NGA Country Cases - IRG

BoR (11) 06b
� Elaborate on the rationale for allowing or not allowing a decommissioning of MDFs, and
any conditions involved. E.g., approval for a phase-out may be made contingent upon the
availability of an equivalent alternative wholesale product. 3
As the telecommunications law now stands, there are no grounds for not allowing the SMP
operator decommissioning its copper local loops not used by any alternative operator. As
for copper local loops currently used, our position is that the SMP operator should maintain
access to them as long as the alternative operator uses these particular loops (and pays
for it).
� In its report “NGA – Implementation Issues and Best Practice” 4 BEREC suggested that “in
addition to the reference offer – wholesale customers should be able to obtain relevant
information on roll-out of new infrastructures or technologies per geographical area. A
reasonable window of announcement is necessary to create a level playing field on the
retail market”.
- Explain if such provisions are applied and what they look like.
Taking as an example the Market 4 the SMP operator will be obliged to provide through
the IT system current information on the technical specifications of the network and
telecommunications equipment, performance and the network architecture, location and
course of infrastructure elements and their capacity and occupancy, terms and conditions
of service provision and use of the network, as well as charges relating to network
infrastructure access including local loop and sub-loop, necessary for obtaining
telecommunications access to the infrastructure including the local loop and sub-loop by
telecommunications undertakings. The information should be available at the request of
the telecommunications undertaking immediately, no later than within one week of the
request receipt.
- Elaborate on your practical experiences with such provisions (e.g. have there been any
practical problems with enforcing such provisions?).
In the past, the SMP operator did not provide alternative operators with all requested
information and did not grant access to its IT systems providing such information.
� Are there any provisions dealing with stranded assets? Investments by alternative
operators get sunk if the closure of MDFs implies that pay-back periods are shorter than
3 See ERG (07) 16rev2, Ch. 4.5.2 and in particular the flow-chart diagram illustrating procedural
issues in the substitution phase.
4 BoR (10) 08; Chapter E.2, p. 9.
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