How does the Netherlands Authority for Consumers and Markets (ACM) analyze the Dutch business telecom market? And how does that relate to the revised Recommendation on Relevant Markets, which the European Commission released on October 9, 2014? These were the key questions that Johan Keetelaar, Director of the Telecommunications, Transport and Postal Services Department at ACM, discussed in his presentation of November 18, 2014 at a conference in Brussels, organized by German research firm WIK.
The theme of the conference was Implementing the new Recommendation on Relevant Markets. This Recommendation lists the telecom markets that ACM must analyze every three years.
Next to the business telecom market, other topics such as call termination, fast broadband networks, and the future of regulation were also discussed during the conference.
WIK asked ACM to give a presentation about the Dutch telecom market, since ACM already separated consumers from business customers in 2012. That separation has now been laid down in the revised Recommendation on Relevant Markets.
The main points of the presentation are:
- As third parties have access to KPN’s network, there is more competition for business customers;
- In turn, that competition forces market participants to invest more in the telecom network;
- Investments in telecom networks and innovations result in better and cheaper products.