SUBJECT: ROAMING REGULATION CHOICE OF DECOUPLING METHOD A CONSULTATION TO ASSIST BEREC IN PREPARING ADVICE TO

Transcription

1 Direction juridique et réglementaire Legal & Regulatory Department des Saisons CS Tél. : +33 (0) Fax : +33 (0) BEREC pm@berec.europa.eu Paris La Défense, 2012 August 10th SUBJECT: ROAMING REGULATION CHOICE OF DECOUPLING METHOD A CONSULTATION TO ASSIST BEREC IN PREPARING ADVICE TO THE COMMISSION ON ITS FORTHCOMING IMPLEMENTING ACT TRANSATEL COMMENTS

2 Summary / Transatel presentation: Transatel would like to thank the BEREC for this consultation which will hopefully help to bring more competition into the European roaming market and help to develop the European Full MVNOs. Transatel participated in the hearing held by BEREC on 19 July Transatel is one of the first pan European MVNO having developed since 2001 an alternative to roaming mobile offer (based on a multi IMSI architecture and on several national access agreements with MNOs), for the cross border population and the roamers within the European Union (EU). The development of this offer has been limited in some European countries because the main European Mobile Network Operators (MNO) on the EU roaming market have always refused to sign a national access agreement (MVNO agreement) with Transatel, and so to encourage the competition into this market. The Transatel offer is commercialised under the Transatel Mobile brand ( in France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Nederland and Switzerland. It must be pointed out that the Transatel service can resolve roaming high rates outside of EU (ex.: Switzerland). Transatel has developed a lot of other activities and is connected to eight (8) different European mobile networks as a: - MVNO - MVNE (MVNO Enabler) providing turnkey solutions for MNOs or MVNOs - M2M provider for MNOs/MVNOs/end users Transatel is now implementing a Full MVNO architecture to support all those kind of activities, and by the way is looking for new collaborators/partners for its headquarter based in Paris, France. Transatel thinks that the last EU regulation on roaming may undermine its current multi IMSI business, but may also represent some new business opportunities within the EU, and help Transatel to leverage on its new Full MVNO architecture. The key elements developed by Transatel into this consultation are the following: - Transatel thinks that the suggested decoupling methods are missing one of the main objectives of the regulation which is to defend and favour the development of new innovative players (Full MVNO) into the European market, who could be in a structural position to offer competitive roaming offers. Actually, the LBO and the single IMSI are not supposed to help the development of the Full MVNOs in Europe. First, the LBO is not opened to the Full MVNOs for the moment. Second, the single IMSI is just a reselling solution. Transatel thinks that the Full MVNOs are the only alternative providers that made/make a lot of investment in Europe in order to get technical and commercial independence from their MNOs, and that can propose some new innovative offers for the European consumer s interests. That is why Transatel urges the BEREC, the European Commission and the Member States to stimulate the Full MVNOs into this regulation. - It must be clear that the roaming regulation does not apply to the Full MVNOs, i.e. the Full MVNOs are not obliged to offer decoupling solutions to Alternative Roaming Providers (ARP). The reason is that such solutions will be costly for the Full MVNOs, and the Full MVNOs already made a lot of investments into their architectures. In addition to that the Full MVNOs are new entrants into the roaming market and they did not take benefit of the high roaming revenues into the past years. Finally, it is not clear if the Full MVNO will have the right to access to the LBO in the visited country, so the Full MVNOs cannot support such obligation without having the benefit of the LBO.

3 - The multi IMSI solution is not a so complex solution, particularly for the Full MVNOs, and so such a solution should be implemented before 2016.

4 Local Break-out (LBO) Transatel answers to questions (Q) 1, Q2, Q3 As mentioned during the BEREC hearings, we believe that the major OS providers (mainly Apple and Google) will be in the best position to capture most of the value as dominant distributors of the LBO roaming data services. Although this is not strictly under the responsibility of BEREC, we urge the European institutions and the representatives of the Member States to consider the fact that the LBO will have a negative impact on the European commercial balance (More profit to US firms and less to EU firms). Nevertheless, if the LBO is accepted, we do not understand why the Full MVNOs do not have an explicit right to provide LBO services. This is unfair since Full MVNOs will just loose business when their customers are going in other EU countries, and then they cannot propose LBO for the customers coming in their countries. In addition to that, combination of LBO and single IMSI looks very complex for the end users, especially when the service is not working well and the end user requires support or makes some claims; the identification of the responsible provider is more complex. Dual IMSI Transatel answers to question Q4 This solution is not so complex particularly for players having a Full MVNO infrastructure. As a consequence, we strongly recommend the BEREC and the European Commission to encourage such solution for the Full MVNOs. In any case, such solution should be mandatory for the benefit of the Full MVNOs in Single IMSI / Single IMSI + Transatel answers to questions Q5, Q6, Q7, Q8, Q9 Single IMSI The single IMSI solution suffers from three things: 1. This is not a structural solution that can be used by the Full MVNO. This is just a reselling solution which does not give flexibility to the Alternative Roaming Provider (ARP) in order to provide both technical and commercial innovation into the European roaming market. So the Full MVNOs cannot leverage on their own infrastructure in order to improve the competition on this market. 2. The competition from the LBO provider in the visited country. Actually, the single IMSI based ARP has no technical and commercial autonomy (it is just a reseller). As a consequence, the ARP will not be in a position to compete with the LBO providers in the countries where its end users are travelling, and no ARP players will then invest into a single IMSI solution. 3. The ARP will only get the roaming traffic and not the national traffic. So the ARP has no sufficient revenues to cover all its acquisition costs before signing any end user contract. The fact that the ARP has no revenues with regard to the national traffic means that the time to recover the acquisition costs will be quite longer. So we think that the BEREC should not encourage the single IMSI solution.

5 Single IMSI + We assume that the steering will disappear if the LBO is effective (because the steering could block the LBO, so it needs to be forbidden as mentioned into the BEREC documentation). As the IMSI+ implies some kind of steering, we do not understand how the IMSI + and the LBO could be operational in the same time. So the Commission/BEREC should choose between those two kinds of solutions because they cannot exist together in the same time. Obligations necessary for effective implementation of decoupling Transatel answers to questions Q10, Q11 Yes we agree with the obligations listed in annex 1. Some Service Level Agreements (SLAs) could also be included as those described into the guidelines of the BEREC regarding the wholesale roaming access. Further developments Transatel answers to questions Q12, Q13 Transatel thinks that it is important to alert the representatives of the Member States against the risk that the roaming regulation III encourages the development of dominant OS providers to the detriment of European Full MVNOs, and so does not favour the European economy. /// End of document