Public consultation on the draft BEREC Report on Member States’ best practices to support the defining of adequate broadband internet access service (BoR (23) 178)

09 October 2023

In 2020, BEREC published the first Report on Member States’ Best Practices to Support the Defining of Adequate Broadband (BoR (20) 99). It was published before the transposition of EECC, hence the report was focusing on a broadband USO under the legislative framework provided for in Directive 2002/22/EC (as amended by Directive 2009/136/EC) (the ‘previous legislative framework’), which included “functional internet access” under universal service, determined the broadband USO “taking into account prevailing technologies used by the majority of subscribers and technological feasibility”.

After transposition in EECC, taking into account the changes it made to the scope of universal services, the draft report is covering the following:

  • The policy principle - Article 84 of the Directive (EU) 2018/1972
  • Relevant experience that BEREC can focus on 
  • State of play of definition of adequate broadband in context of universal service, covering issues in following blocks:
    • Definition (legislation)
    • Methodology/Analysis/Assumptions used
    • Obligations
    • Funding
    • Monitoring and compliance

The results in the draft report are based on the results of the questionnaire that was circulated among Members of EU-WG (29 responses received - 27 EU MS and 2 non-EU MS). Additionally, they are based on other experience, directly or indirectly, related to the provision of adequate broadband internet access service as part of the universal service regime, including the European Commission’s data sources referenced in the report.
BEREC would welcome stakeholders' views in relation to any of the material presented in the report, and specifically, feedback on the questions raised below would be highly appreciated.
Questions on Adequate BB IAS:
1.    Could you please comment on relevant experiences or criteria considered valuable to support Member States in defining the adequate broadband internet access service?
2.    Could you please comment on Minimum requirements for defining the adequate broadband internet access service within the framework of the universal service provision (e.g. upload and download speed, data volume, etc.)?
3.    Which end users should benefit from the universal service provision and what constitutes a reasonable request (criteria)? 
4.    Could you please comment on the issue of Affordability (e.g. maximum retail price, special retail prices for special user groups, etc.) and/or availability measures (e.g. geographical criteria, distance from the existing network, connection cost, etc.) necessary to ensure access to adequate broadband internet access service?
5.    Do you have any other relevant comment?

Practical details of the public consultation

The public consultation run from 9 October until 10 November 2023.

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 automatic 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.

Contributions received:

Related documents: