Press Release: Telecoms: Commission clears ARCEP’s proposal to maintain regulation in French broadcasting transmission services markets

The European Commission cleared, by a letter published on 11 June, 2009, the proposal of the French telecoms regulator ARCEP to maintain regulatory obligations on the incumbent TV transmission services operator TDF. The regulation will apply to those TDF masts and sites that are impossible or very difficult to replicate. Alternative transmission service providers need to have access to these sites under adequate conditions to provide competing transmission services to digital television broadcasters and multiplex operators. At the same time, however, the Commission invited ARCEP to monitor the extent to which TDF's sites can be replicated and the competitive developments on the market so as to ensure that the regulatory obligations to be imposed on TDF remain justified and proportionate.