The CNMC ends landline regulation because of the decline in calls | Companies | EUROtoday

The National Markets and Competition Commission (CNMC) has marked a historic milestone within the roadmap for the liberalization of telecommunications in Spain. Through a decision printed this Monday within the Official State Gazette (BOE), the regulatory physique has made official the full deregulation of the wholesale marketplace for name termination in mounted networks. This resolution, which can come into drive definitively inside six months, represents the dismantling of the final particular obligations that fell on operators on this section, consolidating a free market state of affairs that adapts to the brand new digital actuality.

The mounted termination market is one that enables interconnection between totally different networks; That is, the technical and industrial course of that ensures {that a} consumer of any firm can name a landline subscriber of one other operator. Historically, this service was strictly regulated to forestall operators with their very own networks from abusing their place by charging their rivals extreme costs for “delivering” calls on their networks. However, the CNMC has decided that the present atmosphere has modified dramatically.

The important argument for this step ahead is the lack of relevance of the mounted voice. According to the information managed by Competition, using landline telephones has suffered an unprecedented collapse. Since 2020, visitors has decreased by 65% ​​within the residential section and almost 35% within the enterprise sector. This pattern displays a change in habits in Spanish society, the place cell telephony and on the spot messaging purposes have nearly fully displaced the house terminal. Currently, of all of the voice visitors generated in Spain (including landline and cell), landline barely represents a residual 7.4%, which not justifies regulatory intervention. ex ante as strict because the one which existed till now.

One of the historic fears of deregulation was the likelihood that wholesale costs would skyrocket. However, the CNMC has cleared up these doubts by recalling the existence of the European Union Delegated Regulation of 2021. This neighborhood regulation already establishes a most mounted termination value ceiling of 0.07 euro cents per minute for all member states. Since this European authorized “umbrella” exists, the chance of Spanish operators imposing abusive costs is virtually nullified.

In addition, the group has analyzed the aggressive dynamics of the sector. In this market, all operators play a double function: they’re service suppliers (after they obtain a name on their community) and clients (when their subscribers name one other community). This reciprocity generates a pure stability of pursuits that daunts anti-competitive practices. The CNMC has concluded that conditions of denial of entry or discriminatory situations aren’t more likely to happen, and that, in the event that they do happen, the regulator nonetheless retains authorized instruments to intervene in a well timed method by means of battle decision.

The new energy map: Telefónica and MasOrange

The decision additionally sheds gentle on the distribution of forces within the sector. Despite the drop in visitors, Telefónica stays the main operator with a market share of 41%. It is intently adopted by the large MasOrange, born from the latest merger between Orange and MásMóvil, which already controls 29% of the visitors. These two teams, together with the remainder of the market operators, function in an atmosphere the place earnings per line has plummeted, going from a median of three.39 euros to only one.96 euros monthly.

This deregulation isn’t an remoted occasion, however is an element of a bigger pattern. In latest months, the CNMC has been withdrawing obligations in different markets, resembling broadband, the place Telefónica has seen its stage of supervision lowered in a big a part of the nationwide territory. With the lifting of mounted termination prices, Spain aligns itself with the European Commission’s technique of simplifying the regulatory framework to encourage funding in new era networks (fiber and 5G), abandoning rules designed for the previous copper period.