The President Open Fiber, Mr. Franco Bassanini, has said
that only divestiture of the wholesale operation can deliver non-discriminatory
access to the end-users, reports ITRealms.
Bassanini was speaking weekend, at the Digital Regulation
Forum in London, said that boosting growth and competitiveness through digitalization,
would require a model and role of the wholesale only fiber companies.
According to him, the recent step by the regulator in
London, OFCOM which he described as courageous initiative, with regards to
public funding investment into the sector.
He also said that OFCOM took into account the current
regulatory framework, stressing, however, that “only divestiture of the
wholesale operation can deliver both non-discriminatory access and long term
investment incentives.”
For him, the reason why whole-sale only fiber company model works
is that it has many advantages and produces many benefits in terms of public
policies.
“It allows regulators to better ensure open competition
among telecommunications service providers, to ensure that the playing field is
indeed level. It favors long-term investments in the construction of new generation
infrastructure (FTTH and 5G),” he said.
Bassanini pointed out that these are key factors for the
growth and competitiveness of European economies, and makes it easier for
governments putting in place market friendly incentives.
The European Commission, he noted, also seems to share this
approach, just as the Commission highlighted that network owners “that do not
have retail market activities and whose business model is therefore limited to
the provision of wholesale services to others, can be beneficial to the
creation of a thriving wholesale market, with positive effects on retail
competition downstream.”
He maintained that the business model could be attractive to
potential financial investors in less volatile infrastructure assets and with
longer term perspectives on deployment of very high capacity networks
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