EU Wants German Telekom Fiber Open to All

High Fibre writes "The European Commission has informed Germany that a new law protecting Deutsche Telekom's fiber optic network is illegal. Deutsche Telekom is in the process of rolling out a new fiber network that will serve the 50 largest German cities by the end of 2007 and convinced the German parliament to pass a law that would keep the competition from being able to lease its lines. The EC says that's a no-go: 'The EC believes that the German law would make it more difficult for competitors to enter the German market. More importantly, it runs contrary to an EC-endorsed recommendation that Deutsche Telekom be forced to open up its network — including the new fiber deployment — to competitors.'"

Comments

I never know how to feel about things like this

[realmolo]

On the one hand, if you paid to build the network, it *is* yours, and you should get exclusive access to it. Why should your competitors get a "free ride"?

On the other hand, you don't really want a bunch of fiber running everywhere, when there's PLENTY already in the ground. Building "duplicate" networks is a waste of resources, and the construction is disruptive.

Honestly, at this point, I think that "the government" should be building the networks with tax money, and letting the various providers lease it for a reasonable price. Bandwidth/communications has really become the backbone of the modern economy in a lot of ways. It should be treated almost like the highway system. The only downside is the bureaucracy that will rise up around it all. But I think that, overall, it would be a better situation.

Re:I never know how to feel about things like this

[pubjames]

On the one hand, if you paid to build the network, it *is* yours, and you should get exclusive access to it.

Although that sounds common sense, in actual fact the fibre network will travel almost entirely over public property (under pavements, roads etc), and so we the people (through our government) can put whatever conditions we want on it.

Re:I never know how to feel about things like this

[UbuntuDupe]

That's fine, as long as the public's representative negotiates those conditions *before* the network is built, keeping in mind that unjustifiably burdensome conditions may mean it's never build.

However, why does the builder of the network have to be the same one sending data through it? Wouldn't it be better if one non-ISP company built it, and then leased to all users at prevailing prices? Then you don't have to worry about it being stacked in favor of one ISP's customers. (Disclaimer: I'm a newb on understanding telecom networks.)

Re:I never know how to feel about things like this

[Lordrashmi]

Yeah, I want all fiber running in one place so the backhoe can take it out in one fell swoop.

for new lines that's also true?

[HTD]

I thought the former telco monopolys in europe had to open their old networks for the new telcos to even enable some form of competition. I didn't know that new investments after the opening by the now "private" company fall under the same rule. It's no wonder why there's almost no fiber optics rolled out in the EU, because nobody is willing to pay for infrastructure that must be opened to the competition...

The bad car analogies, they do nothing!

[spun]

You drive your car over public streets, you've got to let the government (i.e. the people) tell you how you can use your car.

There, fixed that for ya'.

Regulation is never the right answer.

[mark3748]

So Deutsche Telekom pays to build a large fiber network, and they own that network. They decide they don't want anyone else using it, that's their business. It is a private network built by a private company, and the government has no right to tell them what they can and cannot do with it. Of course that's just a dream, especially since this is happening in Europe, but even in the US you're likely to have the same issues, and it's sad. It will more than likely end up being a good business decision to lease access to the network to other companies, however I see absolutely no reason to force them to do so. I just wish that private property and liberty still meant something, somewhere in the world.

Re:Regulation is never the right answer.

[guruevi]

It's not that it's THEIR network, such things get hugely funded by local, regional and federal governments. It also runs in public property (the streets) and thus could cost a lot of civilians (driving eg) some money going around traffic while they are working on it.

Next to that, the law doesn't state that they have to give it away for free, in a 'free business' (or liberal?) market, DT would start charging huge amounts of money for using their network, disproportionate to the actual cost, to keep newcomers out the market. That and DT used to be (and might still be partially) state-owned like in a lot of European countries (Belgium has Belgacom for example)

In the UK BT is similarly obligated

[TomAnthony]

In the UK, BT (the formely state owned Telecom provider, now privatised) is obliged to provide competing operators with wholesale broadband access:

http://www.out-law.com/page-3519

I'm not sure how similarly this situation mimics that in the article, asides from with BT the EU wasn't involved in the decision.

watch out.. my libertarian is acting up today...

[Churla]

If the company paid for rights to the land it's cable goes through. And if the company paid the cost of deploying the fiber and none of it is government funded/subsidized then the company should be able to do as they damn well please with it.

If you say "develop and deploy this state of the art network which will increase the countries infrastructure and help along network access in the country, but we're going to make you let your competitors use it too" then I would say that's a good incentive to respond with "well then the government should build and maintain it".

Thank you Captain Obvious

[spun]

You have just restated my point as if I did not understand the point I was making, or as if no one else could understand it. Are you implying that I am an idiot, or that the rest of /. is?

Missing the larger issue

[gr8_phk]

Much of slashdot is missing the larger issue here. The EC is telling Germany what to do. A couple years ago I warned a German co-worker friend of mine that they must keep an eye on that whole EU/EC/E-whatever or it will try to become a single government over all of Europe. "Oh no, that won't happen" it was all just about having a common currency and other such nice things - the power will remain with the member sta.. err countries. This sure looks like federalism vs states rights all over again. Let's hope the EU doesn't have to have a civil war over it. This isn't just a German issue, all of Europe should be upset about it.