Press Release: Telecommunications: Commission raises serious doubts about proposed Spanish broadband regulation

The European Commission informed the Spanish telecoms regulator, Comisión del Mercado de las Telecomunicaciones (CMT), that it has serious doubts that the draft measures on the Spanish wholesale broadband access market, notified under the Electronic Communications Framework Directive, are compatible with EU law. It is unprecedented that a national regulator proposes to regulate wholesale broadband access only up to a certain speed (30 Mb/s in this case). The CMT further proposes to impose less stringent regulation in areas where alternative infrastructure operators seem to be active. In the context of the transition towards high speed broadband in Spain, the Commission needs to ensure that the proposed measures do not hinder broadband competition and are supported by empirical evidence. The Commission now has two months (until 13 January 2009) to take a final decision on whether or not the regulator can adopt the proposed measures.