Nkom finalised the detail of the VULA remedy, which will give access seekers more control on their own retail broadband offers.
Background: In Norway, Telenor is the operator with significant market power in the wholesale broadband access markets. In December 2018, the regulator Nkom reviewed those markets (equivalent to Markets 3a and 3b in the European Commission’s Recommendation on relevant markets). One of the remedies imposed in the review was the provision of virtual unbundled access (VULA) to Telenor’s fibre network. During 2019, Nkom held talks with Telenor and other operators on the details of how Telenor should comply with the access obligation.
Access seekers are given more control: On 1 April 2020, after one year of engagement with industry, Nkom finalised the details of the VULA remedy. In its new form, the access product Telenor has to provide is designed to give access seekers greater control over their own service, thereby allowing them to better differentiate their own retail broadband offer. Telenor now has six months to develop and offer the access products which results from the decision Nkom has adopted. Nkom believes this to be a reasonable timeframe for the implementation, despite the fact that a decision on whether the provision should occur under an ‘equivalence of inputs’ model (EoI) or retain the ‘equivalence of outputs’ regime. Should EoI be adopted, Telenor could be granted a little more time to use the new product for its own retail business, but it should still look to offer it to other access seekers within the six-months deadline.
Other changes to wholesale remedies are coming: In January 2019, Telenor announced its intention to switch-off its copper network by the end of 2022. This prompted Nkom to modify the obligations imposed on Telenor. In November 2019, the regulator set out the detail of the notification obligations Telenor has to follow when switching off its copper network, and in December 2019 it ran a consultation on a FWA remedy to replace copper products. The regulator has also proposed to make newly deployed fibre a substitute to copper at the wholesale level.
