Other noteworthy regulatory developments week ending 28 May 2021 from the Assembly Analyst team
The Governments of France, Germany, and Netherlands released a joint statement advocating for a stricter merger control regime to tackle the power of Big Tech. The ‘non-paper’ calls on the European Commission to supplement the proposals in the Digital Markets Act (DMA) to make sure that EU regulators have the power to review all the mergers and acquisitions of ‘digital gatekeepers’, including those of companies with relatively low turnover, but high value. The proposal also calls for a more targeted scope of the DMA to prioritise enforcement, and a stronger role for national authorities.
In the US, the Acting Chairwoman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) announced new plans to expand network security beyond the FCC’s universal service programs. At the next Open Meeting, scheduled for 27 June, the FCC will explore how to update equipment authorisation rules and competitive bidding procedures to help keep insecure devices off the market. It will also vote on a plan to prevent authorisations of equipment that pose a significant threat to national security or to the safety of US persons and to require additional national security certifications from applications who wish to participate in FCC auctions.
In Spain, the National Commission for Markets and Competition (CNMC) reduced the capacity price of Telefonica’s wholesale fibre bitstream access service (NEBA). This is a monthly rate dependent on the aggregated capacity reserved by an access seeker at the Point of Handover (PoH) for each QoS level. In its review, the CNMC considered a ‘COVID scenario’, reflecting a 55% increase in traffic in 2020. For the years 2021 and 2022, a 26% increase is considered. This results in a reduction from the current €2.83/Mbps, to €2.23/Mbps in 2021 (-21.2%) and €1.97Mbps in 2022 (-11.7%).
