Hocepied, Christian --- "The approach to market definition in the Commission's Guidelines and Recommendation" [2004] ELECD 51; in Buigues, A. Pierre; Rey, Patrick (eds), "The Economics of Antitrust and Regulation in Telecommunications" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2004)

Book Title: The Economics of Antitrust and Regulation in Telecommunications

Editor(s): Buigues, A. Pierre; Rey, Patrick

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781843765103

Section: Chapter 5

Section Title: The approach to market definition in the Commission's Guidelines and Recommendation

Author(s): Hocepied, Christian

Number of pages: 18

Extract:

5. The approach to market definition in the
Commission's Guidelines and Recommendation
Christian Hocepied*

Directive 2002/21/EC on a common regulatory framework for electronic communication
networks and services (the Framework Directive ­ FWD) is based on the premise that there
is a continued need for ex ante obligations in certain circumstances in order to ensure the
development of a competitive market (see, for example, recital 25). The experience of the
liberalization of the telecommunications markets in the European Union since 1998 is that
ex ante regulation is indispensable as a complement to competition law to allow market
entry following liberalization. Sector-specific ex ante regulation was used to ensure that
access conditions on the networks belonging to the incumbents were published and fair so
that entrants could serve customers connected to the latter's networks (as well as to the
networks of the other entrants). Specific access obligations were initially imposed on oper-
ators having significant market power (SMP) in four market areas: voice telephony,
interconnection, mobile telephony, leased lines and, later, extended to local loop unbundling.
However, the ex ante definition of the market areas in which obligations are imposed
could not be maintained in an industry where new markets emerge due to technical and
regulatory innovation.1 One of the aims of the 1999 Review was to address this shortcoming
of the previous framework. The Commission Communication on the 1999 Review therefore
proposed that national regulators should have responsibility for defining markets for the
purposes of ex ...