Facilitate the deployment of Fibre Networks

Effective implementation of GIA

The FTTH Council Europe believes barriers to deployment should be lowered by enabling sharing of legacy passive infrastructures and establishing in-building wiring regimes. The FTTH Council Europe notes in areas such as the sharing of legacy passive network elements (ducts, poles, etc.) and in-building wiring, that the regimes in place today across Europe vary widely but expects that as the Gigabit Infrastructure Act takes effect, greater harmonisation can be expected. Access to newly built infrastructures should not undermine incentives to invest and in particular, such access should not undermine the business case of the original investor.  Nevertheless, there is enormous opportunities for sharing best practice in terms of practical models of in-building deployment and the sharing of that infrastructure in a way that permits competition without wasteful investment or discommoding consumers. 

FTTH can be deployed in any Member State and in any topology but it requires a number of elements including major efforts by public authorities to reduce deployment costs combined with the right incentive structures. There are many ways to reduce costs and a number of relevant infrastructures exist for those operators rolling out FTTH networks. The FTTH Council Europe believe that there are a range of instruments that are available to Member States in order to lower deployment costs as demonstrated across Europe.

While Cost Reduction measures such as those contained in the GIA can help with the deployment of Fibre networks, it is not a panacea that will drive fibre investments by itself – cost reduction measures must be combined with clear objectives and clear incentives for commercial operators. The FTTH Council Europe does not believe that inbuilding wiring ought to be part of the competitive process and that ensuring access to all reasonable requests for shared use of such wiring on, fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms ought to be a requirement in the building code.