Public consultation on the Draft BEREC Report on comparison tools and accreditation

Please note that the deadline for submission of stakeholders' contributions is extended to 30 November 2022.

During the 52^nd BEREC plenary meeting (5-7 October 2022), the Board of Regulators has approved the “Draft Report on comparison tools and accreditation” for public consultation.

The aim of the Report is to offer insights into the independent comparison tools that enable consumers (and other end-users, if so required by the Member States) to compare and evaluate Internet Access Services (IAS) and publicly available number-based interpersonal communications services (NB-ICS), as set out in Article 103[2] of the European Electronic Communications Code (EECC) and, where applicable, publicly available number-independent interpersonal communications services (NI-ICS).

The Report also captures details of the certification process within each Member State that is, upon request, available to the providers of an independent comparison tool that meets the requirements set out in Article 103[3] of the EECC.

While several MS have already put in place comparison tools and/or certification processes, BEREC has never collected information on this issue, since the requirement that end-users have access free of charge to at least one independent comparison tool is a new provision set out in the EECC. In light of the above, BEREC has circulated a questionnaire among 36 countries, in order to gather information from NRAs on comparison tools and certification processes.

The Report explores:

• the context and policy principle regarding independent comparison tools;

• the independent comparison tools that are already in place and the ones that will be implemented in each country (implementation, services and products covered, mechanisms of comparison, challenges of implementing comparison tools and compliance with the EECC);

• the certification processes, providing details about the few existing ones (requirements, costs, lessons learned and compliance with the EECC).

Practical details of the public consultation

The public consultation will run from 12 October 2022 to 30 November 2022.

All stakeholders are invited to submit their contributions to the following e-mail address:

[email protected]

Further enquiries about the consultation may also be submitted to this address. After submitting the contribution, an acknowledgment email will be sent to you.

Contributions should be sent preferably in English and, in order to facilitate processing of the responses, the comments provided should clearly refer to the certain paragraphs/guideline of the document.

We strongly encourage all stakeholders to submit their contributions as early as possible. Contributions received after the above mentioned deadline will not be taken into account.

In accordance with the BEREC policy on public consultations, BEREC will publish a summary of all received contributions, respecting confidentiality requests. Any such requests should clearly indicate which information is considered confidential and be accompanied by a non-confidential version.