rec_208

(208) Network owners whose business model is limited to the provision of wholesale services to others, can be beneficial to the creation of a thriving wholesale market, with positive effects on retail competition downstream. Furthermore, their business model can be attractive to potential financial investors in less volatile infrastructure assets and with longer term perspectives on deployment of very high capacity networks. Nevertheless, the presence of a wholesale-only undertaking does not necessarily lead to effectively competitive retail markets, and wholesale-only undertakings can be designated as having significant market power in particular product and geographic markets. Certain competition risks arising from the behaviour of undertakings following wholesale-only business models might be lower than for vertically integrated undertakings, provided the wholesale-only model is genuine and no incentives to discriminate between downstream providers exist. The regulatory response should therefore be commensurately less intrusive, but should preserve in particular the possibility to introduce obligations in relation to fair and reasonable pricing. On the other hand, national regulatory authorities should be able to intervene if competition problems have arisen to the detriment of end-users. An undertaking active on a wholesale market that supplies retail services solely to business users larger than small and medium-sized enterprises should be regarded as a wholesale-only undertaking.

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Source: EUR-Lex (Cellar) · retrieved 2026-10-28 · Text as adopted (Official Journal); later amendments are not incorporated in this text.