Telecommunicatie: commissie verzoekt om meer marktgegevens alvorens over ontwerp regelgevende maatregelen in de Sloveense mobiele markt te beslissen (en)

In a letter dated 13 November 2008 the Commission has informed the Slovenian telecom watchdog, APEK, that at this stage it has serious doubts as to the finding of joint dominance in the Slovenian mobile access and call origination market. During the following two months the Commission will call for and assess further market data from APEK and market players.

APEK believes that two Slovenian operators, i.e. Mobitel and Si.mobil jointly possess a dominant position in the Slovenian wholesale mobile market which is used to prevent market entry of other mobile operators by way of access to existing mobile networks. The reason for such common interest to keep the market closed is that further competition in the downstream retail mobile market could lead to price cuts and a decrease in profits for the two established operators. On the basis of such assessment, APEK proposes to impose access obligations in the form of national roaming agreements on Mobitel and Si.mobil.

The Commission underlines in its serious doubts letter sent on 13 November that a finding of joint dominance of two operators requires that a number of criteria are met, i.a. that competitive checks from other sources are not effective, that both operators pursue a common policy and that they can retaliate if one of them should deviate from the joint policy.

There are already four mobile network operators and two service providers in the Slovenian mobile market. Two network operators provide nationwide services using Mobitel's network. At this stage, APEK provided unclear and ambiguous information concerning the stability of the alleged 'collusive equilibrium' between the two largest operators. The so-called "Phase II" two-month investigation launched last Thursday allows APEK to provide additional market data and clarify the outstanding issues which the Commission identified as necessary conditions to make any joint dominance story credible.

Background:

• - 

  Access and call origination needs to be purchased by mobile network operators which do not have their own sufficiently developed infrastructure. This means that new players to the market should be able to provide their mobile services to end users by relying on networks owned by their larger competitors. Such so-called national roaming agreements are established through commercial negotiations or can be imposed by regulatory authorities as regulatory obligations.
• - 

  Today's letter is sent by the Commission under the so-called "Article 7" procedure, foreseen in Article 7 of the EU's Framework Directive on the telecoms markets. This procedure leaves considerable scope to national telecoms regulators on how to achieve effective competition, but requires them to notify regulatory measures to the Commission. Where these measures concern market definitions and SMP analyses, the Commission has the possibility to require the NRA to withdraw the measure. Where the measures concern regulatory remedies instead, the Commission may make comments of which the national telecoms regulator should take utmost account. Before the Commission can require a NRA to withdraw a proposed measure, it sends a serious doubts letter to this NRA requesting it to not adopt the measure for another two months. Within this period of two months, the Commission usually looks at further market data and arguments provided by the NRA or market players either supporting or not its serious doubts.
• - 

  On the Article 7 procedure generally, see MEMO/07/457. On the recent reform proposals of the Commission, especially on the proposal to make the interaction between national regulators and the Commission more effective, see IP/07/1677.

For further information:

The text of the letter sent today by the Commission the Slovenian regulator today will be published in the next days at:

http://circa.europa.eu/Public/irc/infso/ecctf/library?I=/commissiondecisions

On the Article 7-procedure under which today’s letter was adopted see:

http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/policy/ecomm/implementation_enforcement/article_7/index_en.htm