The Body of European Regulators starts its work to harmonise national authorities’ collection of data from OTTs to better understand communications markets.
Background: The Body of European Regulators (BEREC) has been looking at ways to gather information about OTT communications services for some time. In 2016, its report on OTT services assessed the potential to conduct a European benchmarking of OTT indicators, and called for a review of the electronic communications services framework to address the absence of legal provisions for NRAs to seek information from providers of OTT services. In December 2019, BEREC published a preliminary report on the harmonised collection of data from “authorised undertakings” (i.e. telecoms providers under the current framework), and OTT services, which identified a list of possible indicators to collect, and set out a plan for further action. This was reflected in BEREC’s Work Programme for 2020, which includes the organisation of a workshop in Q4 2020 to consult stakeholders on the templates to be adopted for data collection.
Preparation for the workshop begins: On 22 April 2020, BEREC started a call for inputs to identify the metrics and indicators national regulatory authorities may collect from OTTs to have a better understanding of electronic communication markets. BEREC has prepared two separate questionnaires for providers of interpersonal communications services and one for providers of video-streaming services. With these, BEREC aims to understand what is the information collected internally, and what are the definitions and methods used for the collection.
A full report will come in 2021: BEREC will use the responses to the questionnaires to prepare the workshop, after which it plans to prepare a final report for 2021. Communication providers are asked to respond by 22 May 2020, whereas video streaming providers have until 26 May 2020.
