Lack of local loop progress leads to Commission action against three Member States
Greece, Portugal and Germany face infringement proceedings initiated by the European Commission, following their failure to follow provisions to ensure the effective opening up of the local loop. Designed to ensure that access to the Internet is fostered through more competitive usage conditions of the last mile of the telecommunications connection (the local loop), the regulation has not been fully implemented in the three named countries. This means that there is not sufficient access for new market entrants to share the local loop to provide services such as DSL (digital subscriber line). Commenting on the development, which came shortly before the Christmas break, Erkki Liikanen, European Commissioner for Information society and Enterprise, said that this is only the first of several possible steps designed to ensure implementation of the regulation. '[This] is only a first step in order to ensure effective implementation of the regulation on unbundled access in all 15 Member States. If there are further problems, additional legal action could be taken in due course,' he said. The first action is to send letters of formal notice to the three countries. Whereas the German situation relates to the monopolistic position of the present incumbent in relation to DSL services, the cases of Greece (failure to publish an offer for shared access) and Portugal (offer is available, but incomplete due to lack of tariffs) relate more to procedural faults.
Kraje
Greece