The proposals contained in the draft EU Regulation on Unbundled Access to the Local Loop do not, in my view, discriminate unfairly against operators designated as having significant market power in the provision of fixed public telephone networks, such as Eircom.
The concept of significant market power was established as part of the existing EU regulatory framework for the telecommunications sector. It is designed to allow national regulators impose specific requirements on operators with significant market power in particular markets to ensure the development of those markets and the growth of competition in the sector.
In general, under this framework, an organisation is presumed to have significant market power when it has a share of more than 25% of a particular telecommunications market in the geographical area in a member state in which it is authorised to operate. The particular markets to which this may apply comprise the markets for interconnection, public mobile telephony, fixed public telephony networks and services, and leased lines.
The scope of the draft EU Regulation on Unbundled Access to the Local Loop is limited to dealing with unbundling of the local loop of those operators identified as having significant market power in the fixed public telephone network market. In Ireland's case this, as of now, means Eircom.