Public funding could play a key role in extending basic...

Regulators for Electronic Communications said Thursday. Instead, the emphasis should be on reaching digital agenda targets via a market-based approach, it said in an opinion (http://xrl.us/bnskq4) on European Commission-proposed draft revisions to state aid rules for rapid deployment of broadband networks. The national regulators welcomed the EC’s intention to ensure that public financing measures don’t distort competition unnecessarily and support competitive infrastructures. They also backed the EC stance that state intervention should limit the risk of crowding out private investment incentives. That means that any state funding regime should be designed for the best cost-benefit outcome, BEREC said. In the telecom sector, the main tradeoff is between the level of public funding needed; the positive impacts the state aid measure has on consumers, the market and the wider economy; and the negative effects it has on existing and future commercial investments and competition, it said. Any state aid grants should come with wholesale access obligations attached, to spur downstream competition, it said. BEREC also praised the EC plan to cut red tape and increase legal certainty in state aid awards. But it said the draft guidelines lack consistency on several issues relating to the role of national regulators in public funding decisions.