The mobile access network sharing agreement between Orange Belgium and its competitor Proximus has just been suspended by the Belgian Competition Authority after Telenet, the third largest mobile operator in the French overseas market, filed a complaint against it. Telenet believes that the alliance would create a giant on the Belgian telecoms market.

"Telenet understands what motivates mobile operators to want to share their mobile network, albeit within the limits of legality, but has serious questions about how far-reaching it is that Belgium's two largest mobile players want to work together in a joint venture," the management said.

All the more so as "such a far-reaching agreement between Proximus and Orange Belgium also has the effect of reducing the number of players holding mobile infrastructure from three to two", Telenet pointed out after an argument that did not leave the Belgian regulator indifferent. And that could well interest French operators.

"In view of their possible impact on competition, the Competition College requires Orange and Proximus to suspend the implementation of the shareholders' agreement and the RAN sharing agreement concluded between them on 22 November 2019, as of the date of receipt of this decision and until 16 March 2020," explained the Belgian Competition Authority at the end of last week.

The decision adopted by the Belgian Competition Authority allows Orange Belgium and Proximus to continue their preparatory work for the establishment of their future joint venture. Indeed, the Belgian regulator's decision "does not prevent the sending of RFPs for the acquisition of network equipment and the selection of employees to be transferred, if this does not lead to the conclusion of binding agreements".

However, Orange Belgium and Proximus were keen to defend their agreement finalised last November "the agreement on the sharing of the mobile access network will have positive effects for customers and for Belgian society as a whole, in particular a faster and wider deployment of 5G, a significant reduction in overall energy consumption and a total improvement of the mobile experience, while maintaining a strong differentiation between the parties in terms of services and customer experience".

As a reminder, this alliance aims to create a 50/50 joint venture between the two operators. "Although sharing their mobile access networks, the two companies will retain full control of their own spectrum resources and will continue to operate their core networks independently to ensure a differentiated customer and service experience," said Orange Belgium and Proximus at the announcement of the agreement.

The Belgian mobile telecommunications market is currently driven by three main operators: Proximus, (44% market share in 2017), followed by Orange Belgium (27%) and Telenet, (with a market share between 20 and 30%).

For several months now, various rumours have been circulating that a fourth operator is entering the Belgian market, thus introducing more competition in a market characterised by a small number of players and relatively high prices. In a study published in 2018, the Belgian regulator had itself shown itself in favour of the entry of a fourth mobile operator on the market, noting that this new competition would make it possible to lower prices and improve innovation, but at the risk of a reduction in investment, particularly in rural areas.

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Source : ZDNet

When SFR was acquired by Numéricable in 2014, the parent company, Altice, made a number of commitments to the French Competition Authority in order to better promote this concentration in the telecoms sector. These commitments, which were entered into for a period of five years, should no longer be maintained, the gendarme said at the end of this period, on 28 October. With one exception: the agreement to co-develop the fibre in very dense areas concluded with Bouygues before the acquisition.

The French Competition Authority has therefore released Altice from several of its commitments concerning:

• the obligation to open the cable network to other operators, and not to use the information available to Altice to deploy its fibre network.
• the prohibition on offering cable offers in La Poste branches with which SFR had a distribution agreement.
• the maintenance of dark fibre (FON) or dedicated optical local loop (BLOD) offers "at least as advantageous as before the operation".

On the other hand, the competition police officer was more picky about the Faber contract concluded between SFR and Bouygues Telecom in 2010. A co-delivery agreement for the horizontal fibre optic network in 22 cities located in very dense areas (including Paris). Especially since Altice was called to order in 2017 because of "particularly serious breaches" of the execution of this contract. 40 million fine and injunctions to comply with deployment commitments co-financed by Bouygues Telecom.

The Authority decided to lift part of the injunctions: those, without penalty, requiring Altice to connect the buildings concerned by the agreement as from the 2017 decision. The competition police officer considers that Altice's interests are now "aligned with those of Bouygues Telecom" within the scope of the Faber contract. The parent company now favours FttH.

On the other hand, the injunctions under penalty payments for the stock of buildings that were to be fibrated before 2017 are maintained. The Authority is examining the progress of Patrick Drahi's group to determine whether it should also be released from these commitments. Its conclusions will be issued "in the first half of 2020".

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Source : DegroupNews

Kosc was unsuccessful against Altice and contested the decision taken by the Competition Authority. Indeed, seized on the occasion of the sale of Completel's copper network, the competition police last week issued its verdict: "there is nothing to define that Altice has committed a fault with regard to its obligations".

This is a major blow for the wholesale provider of telecom services to operators in the enterprise market, which has been denouncing SFR's parent company's late deliveries for months. This decision is all the more difficult to accept as its financial equation has become significantly more complicated.

But the operator does not intend to stop there since he "rejects", in a press release, the verdict of the Competition Authority and announces that he will bring the case before the Conseil d'État. A referral "motivated by the numerous irregularities that have marked the follow-up of the case by the Competition Authority, including the unexplained duration of its investigation in a context of urgency and the probable violation of its secrecy".

In addition, the company believes that the abandonment of Banque des Territoires (Caisse des Dépôts group), one of its main supporters, can only be explained by an understanding of the result favourable to Altice - SFR upstream.

Kosc warns against a prospect of consolidation that it now considers itself the "privileged target of a hostile acquisition" in view of its financial fragility. An operation that would "de facto close the business telecommunications market to the detriment not only of the ecosystem of hundreds of digital business service operators but also of the beginning of catching up on the digitalisation backlog of French SMEs and VSEs", warns the operator.

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Source : DegroupNews

Submitted last autumn by the Association of Alternative Telecommunications Operators, the request for an opinion to separate Orange's retail and infrastructure sectors into two separate entities was rejected on 30 January by the French Competition Authority. Indeed, the competition police do not consider it useful to give a favourable follow-up to the study of this referral for an advisory opinion.


The 45 operators that make up the AOTA protest against "repeated problems of access to the Civil Engineering of the Orange operator inherited from the national public domain of telecommunications, itself used by Orange to operate its copper network and constitute a passive shared fibre network currently unavailable in activated mode for competition."


However, the association does not intend to stop there, since it now plans to call on Brussels to defend its positions: "the association takes note of this decision by the independent administrative authority responsible for protecting consumers, whether residential or economic, from unfair practices on the part of private interests. It now also intends to refer the same matter to the European Union in order to obtain its opinion and, if necessary, to take the necessary corrective action to ensure that competition is conducted in a healthy and fair manner on the French telecommunications market."

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Source : ZDNet