The BEREC stand regarding the prospective regulation of access networks, looking at the Digital Agenda Targets

Document number: BoR (16) 47

Document date: 17-02-2016

Date of registration: 22-02-2016

Document type:
Author: BEREC Vice Chair Angelo Cardani

On 17 February 2016 in Luxembourg, the annual FTTH conference took place. The 2016 event focused on a large number of hot topics - for example - fibre-enabled services like eHealth, eGovernment financing and marketing of FTTH networks. Along with other European key decision-makers the BEREC Vice –Chair Mr. Cardani (AGCOM) presented and discussed the broadband situation in Europe and shared the BEREC views on the way towards the Digital Agenda targets. In his speech, BEREC Vice-Chair Angelo Cardani stressed: “BEREC shares the Commission’s ambitious connectivity goals, and we are convinced that Europe needs to develop high-performance broadband infrastructure, bearing in mind that our target should be long-term consumers’ welfare.”

On the regulatory implications of such goals, Vice-Chair Cardani added: “We think that sectoral regulation can definitely play a role here but we also firmly believe that any regulatory intervention can effectively display its potential only when working in conjunction with all of the other policy actions impacting on the whole digital ecosystem and beyond” and “…more flexibility in terms of instruments available to NRAs should be introduced, in order for them to be able to intervene in such ever evolving context, within the specific markets of reference.”.