ANACOM concluded the analysis of the prices of wholesale offers supported by rural high-speed networks and proposed to the Government a price reduction of Fibroglobal's offers. According to ANACOM's proposal, the prices this company charges are expected to fall by between 30% and 66%, depending on the type of access, in order to ensure that they remain at reasonable and non-discriminatory levels.
In the opinion of ANACOM, a decrease in the price of Fibroglobal offers will result in a greater use of these offers by retail operators other than MEO, allowing them to reach the large consumer market, enhancing competition and investment. This creates conditions for the citizens of the areas concerned to have access to new retail offers and better services at competitive prices.
In addition, ANACOM considers it important for Fibroglobal to extend its bitstream offer at Internet speeds of 200 Mbps, 400 Mbps or even 1 Gbps, and to introduce the multicast functionality, enabling the provision of television and broadband Internet services.
ANACOM’s proposal was preceded by a prior hearing promoted by this Authority, following an order from the Secretary of State for Infrastructure, in which Fibroglobal, MEO, NOS, Vodafone, NOWO/ONITELECOM, Broadband Portugal and Euro Broadband Services all took part.
ANACOM also decided to refer to the Competition Authority (Autoridade da Concorrência) the additional information provided by the operators, related to the contractual relations between MEO and Fibroglobal, a matter that it brought to the attention of that Authority in September 2017.
3.1 million to be returned
ANACOM also approved the analysis of possible over-financing under contracts for rural high-speed networks. In this analysis it is concluded that there was over-financing in the contracts concluded with Fibroglobal, relating to the Central and Azores areas. The results of the reimbursement amounts amounted to 3.1 million euros.
Accordingly, ANACOM proposes that the Portuguese State refer to the results of this evaluation to the authorities managing the Community funds used to finance the networks, in order to reimburse those entities for the amounts of overfunding established.
In its analysis, ANACOM strictly followed the rules stipulated in contracts for rural high-speed networks. Under these contracts, the allocation of public funding constitutes an over-financing if the profit from operating the high-speed network is higher than the average recorded in the sector.
As regards the contracts concluded with DST-N and DST-A&A, for the North and Alentejo and Algarve areas, the analysis made it possible to conclude that there was no over-financing.
According to the agreements entered into with Fibroglobal, DST-N and DST-A&A, the existence of over-financing must be checked every 5 years over the 20-year duration of the contracts. Since the first 5 years of the contracts had passed, ANACOM proposed that the Government should request information in order to assess the situation.
By order of the Secretary of State for Infrastructure, ANACOM was designated to collect and analyse all the elements and information needed to establish the occurrence of over-financing in the performance of contracts for rural high-speed networks.
Consult:
- Analysis of possible over-financing under contracts for high-speed networks in rural areas https://www.anacom.pt/render.jsp?contentId=1435823
- Approval of the ''Analysis of the prices of wholesale offers supported by rural high-speed networks and proposal to reduce the prices of the offers from Fibroglobal'' https://www.anacom.pt/render.jsp?contentId=1435816
