Significant Market Power guidelines updated to safeguard competitiveness in the telecoms market

The Commission presented today revised guidelines on Significant Market Power (SMP) which will guide National Regulatory Authorities (NRAs) when analysing telecoms market and sets principles to detect potential anti-competitive practices in the electronic communication market.

The revised guidelines reflect the latest developments in case-law and address issues previously not included, such as the competitive impact of online service providers that have started to offer internet based services, increased provision of bundled services (internet, voice and TV content) at retail level, competitive pressure of cable-based services as well as the transition from monopolistic to oligopolistic market structures in some countries. The guidelines will help national regulators to correctly delineate markets in the electronic communications sector and to identify significant market power of operators. Moreover, the guidance is complementary to the Electronic Communications Code that is currently under negotiation by the EU institutions and has been flagged a priority file for creating a Digital Single Market. The revision of SMP guidelines took into account a public consultation running from March to June 2017, an external study, and an opinion of the Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications. More details on the new guidelines are available here.