Press Release: Telecoms: European Commission urges German telecoms regulator to create better conditions for competition in the retail access market

The European Commission has sent a letter to the German telecoms regulator, Bundesnetzagentur (BNetzA), calling on it to make the provision of fixed subscriber lines more competitive. Currently the market is still dominated by the incumbent operator, Deutsche Telekom (DT). While Deutsche Telekom's offer means that other operators can sell-on to consumers the use of land lines that they have leased from the incumbent, Deutsche Telekom charges these operators the same price as it does its own consumers. This makes it harder for alternative operators to offer consumers a competitive deal. The Commission wants the German regulator to oblige DT to make its land lines available to other telecoms operators. It also asks BNetzA to supervise wholesale prices for alternative operators providing competing services using Deutsche Telekom's network.