Page 72 - SAMENA Trends - February 2022

WHOLESALE UPDATES SAMENA TRENDS

On Net Hits Three Million Homes Passed by FTTH

Wholesale fiber infrastructure provider On Net Fibra has reached Fibra General Manager Jose Miguel Torres said of the milestone:
three million homes passed by its fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) ‘Reaching half of the country’s homes with the possibility of high
network, providing coverage of roughly half of all existing speed access allows us to consolidate our leadership position in
homes in Chile. In a statement the firm, which was spun off from the deployment of fiber optic networks, with a unique potential
Movistar Chile in July 2021 and is now majority owned by KKR and competitiveness in the market so that our current and future
(Movistar retains a minority stake in the business), claims to have clients can use our network, and thus focus on delivering their
invested around USD100 million over the first seven months of services to homes and businesses in Chile.’
its operation to increase its network footprint by 20%. On Net

Romania, Moldova Agree to Cut Roaming, International Call Charges

(ANCOM) has announced. The accord has been concluded for
an initial period of five years, with the changes expected to be
implemented within the next three months. According to the
press release, the agreement aims to create the framework for
a sustainable reduction in retail tariffs for international roaming
services, including voice, SMS and data, as well as international
calls between the two countries. ANCOM and its Moldovan
counterpart, the National Regulatory Agency for Electronic
Communications and Information Technology (ANRCETI), will
ensure that network operators within their jurisdictions negotiate
in good faith with any applicant the technical and commercial
conditions for the provision of interconnection in order to
The governments of Romania and Moldova signed an agreement terminate in its own network calls and SMS from numbers from
on 11 February to reduce tariffs for roaming services and the other party’s state, as well as the international transit of calls
international calls between the two countries, Romania’s National and SMS to networks in its own state.
Authority for Management and Regulation in Communications

EC Withdraws Czech Plans for MVNO Wholesale Access

The European Commission (EC) stonewalled the Czech Telecom- operators O2, T-Mobile and Vodafone commanding “significant
munication Office’s (CTO) plan to force MNOs to give favorable market power”. The EC pointed to concessions O2 made after
wholesale access to MVNOs, deeming the move incompatible with the country’s 2020 5G spectrum auction when it was obliged to
EU law. In a statement, the EC said the regulator notified the EU’s provide national roaming of 5G spectrum at an attractive price to
executive branch in November last year of its intentions, which it service providers CentroNet, Nordic Telecom and PODA. The point
claimed will make the Czech mobile market more competitive and the body was trying to make was that interested parties must
result in lower prices for customers. The EC informed the CTO it move earlier particularly when a spectrum auction is scheduled,
had “serious doubt” for the policy to go through due to incapability as concessions are expected of bidders which usually results
with EU law, and has closed its in-depth investigation on the matter, in better prices for wholesale networks. It also noted there are
now demanding the CTO to withdraw its draft measure to provide already favorable conditions for the market entry of a new mobile
wholesale mobile access. The body wrote the draft measure is not operator. The Czech regulator said in a statement it does not
“sufficiently justified” and does not take into account the short agree with the EC's decision and will consider further steps to
to mid-term market developments. It added the criteria for joint lower prices for consumers, but did not state any detail. The CTO
dominance by the country’s three largest operators had not been revealed its intentions to push through this measure last year and
met. In the draft measure, the CTO stated retail prices for phones revealed there was a failure in keeping wholesale prices in check
and plans are particularly high in the Czech Republic, and MVNOs as data per megabit transferred between 2015 to 2020 was higher
are not able to provide competitive services due to incumbent than or equal to the retail price.

72 FEBRUARY 2022