165
information society services, and to impose appropriate interoperability requirements
(EC, 2006: 32f.).164
This assessment of the European Commission is in line with the above conclusion
that market power regulation of monopolistic bottlenecks is sufficient to hinder
discriminatory market power leveraging.
9.4 Conclusions
The overview of telecommunications regulation in the U.S. and the EU focused on
the regulation of access to network elements of the local telecommunications infrastructure. It was shown that the trend to the convergence of telecommunications,
media, and Internet services has had a different impact on traditional telecommunications regulations in the United States and the European Union. In the United
States, liberalization of local telecommunications services was introduced in 1996
and was at first accelerated by intensive unbundling regulations. When infrastructure-platform competition increased, these regulations were subsequently curtailed
dramatically. Today, incumbents are only obliged to offer unbundled access to the
local loop for narrowband voice telecommunications services. For broadband
access, U.S. regulation currently relies on competition by other infrastructure platforms. In Europe full liberalization of telecommunications services provision was
introduced in 1998. Convergence was accounted for in the new EU regulatory
framework for electronic communications of March 2002, which equally applies to
different electronic communications platforms. The advent of network convergence
has not had the effect of reducing regulation of wholesale telecommunications
inputs. Rather, market-power regulation was extended to sectors previously not
included.
In addition, the analysis showed that the importance of competitive broadbandaccess markets is increasing with the advent of NGN services. The fact that broadband-access regulation was curtailed so significantly in the U.S. is partly responsible
for the fear of network neutrality activists that vertically integrated operators may
have an incentive to discriminate competitors on the logical and on the applications
layers of Internet service provision. If in some geographic markets no infrastructureplatform competition exists or is likely to develop, then the FCC should use the
instruments provided by the Telecommunications Act of 1996 to regulate unbundled
access to remaining monopolistic bottleneck network elements, that competitors
need to offer competitive high-speed Internet access services. Further, the assessment of the European regulation of telecommunications services lead to the conclusion that the possibilities, which the framework provides for limiting current overregulation, are not being used. A consistent application of the three-criteria test and a
164 The Commission here refers to the four “Net Freedoms” identified by the FCC, namely “the
right for users to access and distribute (lawful) content, to run applications and connect devices of their choice” (EC, 2006: 32).
166
commitment to limit regulation only to market areas in which network-specific market power, due to ownership of monopolistic bottlenecks, is identified, would result
in regulating only those remaining access markets in which infrastructure-platform
competition has not yet evolved and is not likely to evolve under prevailing market
conditions.
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References
Zusammenfassung
Die Konvergenz der Netztechnologien, die dem Internet, der Telekommunikation und dem Kabelfernsehen zu Grunde liegen, wird die Regulierung dieser Märkte grundlegend verändern. In den sogenannten Next Generation Networks werden auch Sprache und Fernsehinhalte über die IP-Technologie des Internets transportiert. Mit den Methoden der angewandten Mikroökonomie untersucht die vorliegende Arbeit, ob eine ex-ante sektorspezifische Regulierung auf den Märkten für Internetdienste wettbewerbsökonomisch begründet ist. Im Mittelpunkt der Analyse stehen die Größen- und Verbundvorteile, die beim Aufbau von Netzinfrastrukturen entstehen, sowie die Netzexternalitäten, die im Internet eine bedeutende Rolle spielen. Die Autorin kommt zu dem Ergebnis, dass in den Kernmärkten der Internet Service Provider keine monopolistischen Engpassbereiche vorliegen, welche eine sektor-spezifische Regulierung notwendig machen würden. Der funktionsfähige Wettbewerb zwischen den ISP setzt jedoch regulierten, diskriminierungsfreien Zugang zu den verbleibenden monopolistischen Engpassbereichen im vorgelagerten Markt für lokale Netzinfrastruktur voraus. Die Untersuchung zeigt den notwendigen Regulierungsumfang in der Internet-Peripherie auf und vergleicht diesen mit der aktuellen Regulierungspraxis auf den Telekommunikationsmärkten in den Vereinigten Staaten und in Europa. Sie richtet sich sowohl an die Praxis (Netzbetreiber, Regulierer und Kartellämter) als auch an die Wissenschaft.