Obligations on leased lines to be removed, says Commission

Leased lines are used by large companies to create in-house company networks. Small and medium sized enterprises and institutions use them to link up to the internet, while network operators and service providers use them to link up their facilities. Leased lines are therefore essential to the working of the information society.

Since 1993, Member States have been required to ensure that a minimum set of leased lines is available throughout their territory, from at least one network operator - typically the incumbent. The minimum set of leased lines defined at EU level includes five different types of line with speeds up to 2 Mbps. The technical specifications of these five types of leased lines are laid down in standards agreed by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI).

The EU telecommunications market was liberalised in 1998, and as a result there is now a competitive supply of leased lines in many markets - in particular on high-density long distance routes. Consequently, the need for enforcing the provision of leased line services is decreasing.

A new regulatory framework for electronic communications came into effect in all Member States from 25th July 2003. As part of this, the former leased lines Directive has been repealed, and a more flexible approach is now in place.

One of the principles of the new framework is that regulation must be removed when competition is delivering the desired result. In the case of leased lines, this means that national regulatory authorities in the Member States will be able to remove the obligation for an operator to provide some or all of the leased line types in the minimum set where market analysis shows that there is effective competition in the relevant leased line market.

In doing its market analysis, the national regulatory authority can take into account the geographical dimension, so if competition is effective in some areas but not others, the obligation to provide leased lines can be maintained only in those areas where competition is not effective.

The text of the Commission Decision is available here.