Arcep settles Bouygues Telecom and SFR FTTH dispute
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Arcep settles Bouygues Telecom and SFR FTTH dispute

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Telecommunications regulator Arcep has reached a decision over a pricing dispute between Bouygues Telecom and SFR FTTH.

In January of this Bouygues Telecom contacted the Arcep Executive Board body responsible for settling disputes, legal proceedings and investigations (RDPI), asking for its help in settling a dispute it was having with SFR FTTH regarding the pricing which Bouygues Telecom accesses fibre lines operated by SFR FTTH.

In particular it relates to the fibre lines operated by SFR FTTH outside of very high-density areas in those parts of the country where SFR subsidiary, SFMD, operates.

Bouygues Telecom’s request to referral to Arcep include calls for SFR to cancel the price increase on its different FTTH access solutions that started in February 2020/

 Additionally, Bouygues Telecom requested a decrease in the monthly line rental price of €16.40 to a range of between €12.20 and €13.20 which also began in January 2020.

In response Arcep found that the information supplied by SFR FTTH did not justify an increase in it co-financing rates, going so far to say that the elements put forth by SFR FTTH made it impossible to assess the reality of the alleged additional costs …”.

As a result, Arcep concluded that the price increase introduced by SFR FTTH was neither justified nor reasonable.

In relation to the monthly line rental fee Arcep relied on the “investment ladder principle” in which an infrastructure operators must offer several access solutions (co-financing and rental), at different commitment and pricing levels, and line rental fees must be “assessed based on the difference in the price of co-financing and rental solutions”.

The regulator said that in light of the gap with the co-financing rates charged by SFR FTTH, calculated based on the 2015 pricing model, that “the passive line rental price of €16.40 excl. VAT/month/line was unreasonable, and that the high end price range requested by Bouygues Telecom, namely €13.20 excl. VAT/month/line, was reasonable.”

The full Arcep decision is to be published over the coming weeks.

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