The European Commission should cut wholesale access charges and stop...

broadband, most competitors “have struggled to make a return and have put future investment plans on hold” as high fees levied to rent incumbents’ legacy copper infrastructure drain their reserves, ECTA said in a statement it stressed reflected only the views of its alternative-operator members, not those with incumbent interests. Dominant companies want regulated charges for access to their copper networks to stay the same or increase to fund investments in high-speed fiber lines, ECTA said. But challengers believe most incumbents aren’t building out fiber networks all the way to the household, and are instead making partial vDSL network upgrades which don’t cost as much and could undermine competition by limiting new entrants’ ability to unbundle the access network, it said. “It is time the copper gravy train ended,” said ECTA Chairman Tom Ruhan. Incumbents that don’t invest in fiber should be held to account, he said. Europe’s telecom liberalization experiment is close to failing because regulations don’t support the business case for even leading operators, he said. If current trends continue, “we may be back to monopolies and duopolies for broadband services” in five years, he said. Cable operators, meanwhile, urged the EC not to base policy on a single network. There are no limits to the positive outcomes delivered by infrastructure-based competition, said Cable Europe. A policy that advances only one single network misses the opportunity to deliver the best results for end-users, and fails to consider “the questionable strategy of relying on one single network in today’s infrastructure-centric society,” it said. Such a policy also raises security and resilience concerns and is an economic risk because it relies on a single investment and choice of technology, it said. Also at the ECTA conference, Digital Agenda Commissioner Neelie Kroes said year-old EC powers to perform in-depth investigations of competition decisions of national telecom regulators have created more consistency for operators and have often resolved problems without the need for heavier-handed enforcement. The “Article 7a” procedure has resulted in more cases and outcomes more connected to goals, she said. With the new powers, the EC is no longer a “mere commentator” but can take a more proactive role in determining how its concerns can be addressed, she said. It can also exercise its powers more flexibly than under the earlier system, she said.