Workshop Report - Study on the evolution of the competition dynamics of tower and access infrastructure companies not directly providing retail services Draft BEREC Workshop summary report on study on evalution of infrastructure companies

On 20 June 2023  BEREC and WIK-Consult held a workshop. 

The aim of the workshop was to collect stakeholders’ views for the BEREC study on the evolution of the competition dynamics of tower and access infrastructure companies not directly providing retail services[1]. This study has been commissioned to WIK-Consult by BEREC. The main objectives of the workshop were:

1. to explore how and why infrastructure companies have been formed, their future plans and faced challenges
2. to understand the structure of the companies, their business model, expected profitability and their access offers, and
3. to analyse the implications for competition and investment in fixed and mobile very high-capacity networks.

The workshop concluded with a discussion around the implications of the rise of infrastructure companies for regulation under the EU Electronic Communications Code, BCRD and forthcoming Gigabit Infrastructure Act.

The workshop was held in hybrid format. Around 30 participants attended it in person including the majority of the speakers, representatives from certain NRAs, representatives from the BEREC Office and WIK Consult study team, as well as a single representative from each of the trade associations invited (ECTA, ETNO, EWIA, FTTH Council Europe, GIGAEurope, and GSMA). The other speakers as well as other external interested parties attended the conference via Webex. A total of around 200 participants took part virtually, reflecting the perceived importance of the topic and interest by stakeholders in the programme and speakers.