With important reforms looming in Europe, the regulatory model in France was singled out as having successfully enabled fibre investment and competition
Europe’s future-proof ex-ante regime must not replaced with the use of symmetric access obligations
On 23 October 2025, Assembly attended, and moderated, two panels at Capacity Europe in London. The first centred on the future of telecoms regulation, focusing in particular on the implications of the EC’s forthcoming draft Digital Networks Act (DNA). Luc Hindryckx (Director General, ecta) stated that his organisation did not share the negative picture that some – including the EC via its Digital Infrastructure White Paper – had painted of the European telecoms sector, arguing that its performance in terms of network coverage, investment and affordability should be celebrated. Hindryckx considered the current framework was key to this, stating that it is timeless, flexible and technology neutral (“it is not made for copper, it is made for whatever you want”), with its asymmetric, ex-ante approach ensuring dominant providers are regulated appropriately. He claimed to have received encouraging signals from Henna Virkkunen (EVP for Tech Sovereignty, Security and Democracy, EC) that ecta members should “not be so worried” by the contents of the DNA; however, Hindryckx remained concerned by the continued idea that symmetric measures under the Gigabit Infrastructure Act (GIA) should replace the prevailing SMP-based regime, which he saw being pushed at a recent BEREC/EC workshop. Manuel Cabugueira (Board Member, ANACOM) echoed many of Hindryckx’s sentiments, seeing the role of regulators as about providing the certainty and predictability that would in turn promote both investment and competition, and ultimately help typically “stubborn” markets work. Cabugueira also emphasised that regulators should not be afraid to impose ex-ante obligations where necessary. Where upfront, asymmetric measures are not needed, ex-post competition law can instead be used to address potential market failures.
Greater harmonisation in spectrum policy may be beneficial, but regulation will still need to account for national circumstances
There were some differences of opinion, however, on the need for greater harmonisation of regulation across the EU and on how that might be realised. On the issue of a bloc-wide access product for the business market (which may well appear in the DNA proposals), Valentin Velichkov (CEO and Board Member, Vestitel) was sceptical, seeing difficulties in creating some kind of unified offer (especially on price) given the range of wholesale products already available on the market. That said, he was more positive about the promise of a more unified regulatory regime for encouraging cross-border operations. In contrast, Cabugueira warned that regulation must recognise the “specificities” of different countries and local realities. Hindryckx agreed, arguing that unified, i.e. fully harmonised, regulation would not work, and expressed disappointment that national factors were not accounted for in the EC’s veto of wholesale broadband regulation in Malta – proposals which BEREC (and ecta) supported. On spectrum, panellists were more clearly aligned, acknowledging the need for a stable policy environment that makes the most of a scarce resource and ensures multiple bands, such as C-band and sub-1GHz, are available (at fair prices) to serve the needs of various applications and players. Cabugueira raised concerns though that delays to awards would stifle the supply of spectrum to enable innovative new technologies, e.g. satellite, as well as regarding the challenge of balancing competitive objectives to meet the demands of the mobile industry and those of alternative users.
The fibre market is a scale game that would ultimately end in three national networks in the UK
In the second panel promising predictions on the future of fibre consolidation in the UK, the view among the participating altnets was universally optimistic and inching closer to alignment on the end game for the market. Graham Sargood (Chairman, Ogi) opened the conversation with a consensus view on how altnets needed to achieve scale in order to begin turning a return on investment, suggesting “if you haven’t got over a million homes [passed], you can’t move up the value chain”. Though in agreement generally, Thibault Contat Desfontaines (Co-Head of Infrastructure Equity for Europe, UBS) added his belief that UK fibre builders were initially too focused on homes passed, as opposed to homes connected, as the metric to measure a network’s scale. Wil Wadsworth (Group CFO, Netomnia, YouFibre and brsk) discussed how scale has already allowed altnets to derisk their investments and attract large ISPs as customers, complimenting CityFibre’s deal with Sky as the first in a series of friendly praise between the representatives of the two firms. Rob Hamlin (Chief Strategy Officer, CityFibre) noted that altnets have collectively passed 19m homes in the UK and connected 3m of them as customers – emphasising these gains were made without any possible advantages Openreach may have as the former incumbent. Regarding the eventual market structure to be created by these scaling networks, both Hamlin and Wadsworth acknowledged the likelihood of three national fibre networks – via Openreach, Virgin Media O2 and a converged altnet outfit – though Wadsworth also considered the possibility that Virgin Media O2 (via its parent firms Liberty Global and Telefónica) steps in as a consolidator of altnets to create two national networks or for a “wild card” scenario in which a non-UK firm enters the market by acquiring altnets. Sargood appeared more bullish on the potential for vertically integrated altnets to persist for a longer horizon but conceded that wouldn’t be an optimal outcome for the market.
Ofcom should “stand firm” in the TAR and perhaps take a page out of Arcep’s book
Unsurprisingly, all panellists championed the value of competition in the fibre market as a positive for the UK, while Hamlin made the most direct argument on the need for a regulatory framework that sustains it. Urging Ofcom to “stand firm” in the obligations placed on Openreach, he emphasised the importance of the Telecoms Access Review (TAR) providing stability. Reiterating this message with learnings from abroad, Desfontaines applauded the work of Arcep in providing longer term certainty to investors that resulted in between four and six scaled operators in France. Stating simply that “we like France because of the regulation”, he also pointed to Arcep’s approach to copper retirement as an important driver of fibre take-up through consistent communication with consumers. Sargood also pointed to the role of Government, in particular through public funding provided through the prior Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), as an early but important element in developing a competitive market in the UK. Driving home the value of competition (and the imperative of regulation to promote it), Hamlin argued that the only parties that don’t benefit from multiple scaled networks are the existing “weak duopoly” of Openreach and Virgin Media O2, whereas consumers, businesses and the country more broadly all stand to gain from long-term competition.
