Press Release: Telecoms: Commission endorses amended version of Austrian broadband access market definition

The European Commission has given its green light to the amended definition of the wholesale broadband access market (WBA) notified by the Austrian regulator RTR (Rundfunk und Telekom Regulierungs GmbH). On 5 October 2009, the Commission had expressed serious doubts about the market definition as originally notified by RTR on 3 September 2009. RTR has now provided sufficient evidence that mobile broadband connections are substitutes to fixed line broadband connections for Austrian residential customers. RTR has also modified its wholesale market definition and now excludes all bitstream access for residential customers from regulation. Nevertheless, the Commission invites RTR to closely monitor market developments and to change the market definition if its forecasts on the continued substitutability of fixed and mobile broadband products and next generation access network (NGA) roll-out prove to be incorrect.