BEREC adopted a BEREC Opinion on Phase II investigation (IE/2021/2332-2333)

On 18 June 2021, the European Commission (EC) registered a notification from the Irish national regulatory authority, the Commission for Communications Regulation (ComReg), concerning the markets for retail fixed telephony services (RFTS) and wholesale fixed access and call origination (FACO) in Ireland. In its draft measure, ComReg notifies national retail markets for fixed telephony services and urban and regional wholesale markets for fixed telephony. The draft measure proposes to designate Eircom as having significant market power in the relevant regional wholesale FACO market.

On 16 July 2021, the EC sent a serious doubts letter opening a phase II investigation pursuant to Article 32 of Directive (EU) 2018/1972. The EC's serious doubts concern the market definition proposed by ComReg, the three criteria test and the SMP assessment.

Based on the analysis set out in its Opinion, BEREC considers that the EC’s serious doubts are partially justified, namely with regard to the substantiation of the geographic market definition, in particular the regional FACO market. However, with regard to the product market definition of the RFTS and FACO markets, the three criteria test, as well as the majority of the significant market power analysis, BEREC does not share the EC’s serious doubts.