EUROPEAN COMMISSION - COMMITMENTS FROM T-MOBILE CZ, CETIN AND O2 CZ ON CZECH NETWORK SHARING

24/08/2022

The European Commission has made commitments offered by T-Mobile CZ, CETIN and O2 CZ, as well as their parent companies Deutsche Telekom and PPF Group, legally binding under EU antitrust rules. According to the commitments, the companies must ensure that their network sharing agreements do not reduce infrastructure competition which enables competition and innovation in the wholesale and retail telecommunications markets in Czechia.

O2 CZ and T-Mobile CZ are major operators in the Czech retail and wholesale mobile telecommunications market. O2 CZ's mobile infrastructure has been transferred to CETIN, a network infrastructure company belonging to the same corporate group.

Regarding the preliminary assesment, the Commission has found out that network sharing agreements (‘NSAs') between CETIN and T-Mobile CZ as well as the Mobile Services Agreement (‘MNSA') concluded between O2 CZ and CETIN has provisions that consist anti-competitive behaviour such as:

T-Mobile manages the mobile telecommunications network in West Czechia and CETIN manages the network in East Czechia. Each provides services to the other in its own area.
The way unilateral deployments and upgrades were charged by one party to the other in the respective regions included additional charges and therefore reduced the operators' incentives to invest in the part of the country where they are not in charge of the network.
Information Exchange betweeen the parties in the context of network sharing went beyond what was strictly necessary and included information that reduced the companies' incentives to compete.

In order to adress there competitive concerns the parties have committed:

To modernise the mobile network equipment to enable more flexibility and independence for the two sharing parties in certain radio frequencies
To review and change the financial conditions for unilateral network deployments in order to remove financial disincentives for such unilateral deployments;
To improve the contractual provisions limiting information exchange to the minimum necessary for the operation of the shared network;
To implement measures to ensure that CETIN effectively prevents information spill-over between T-Mobile CZ and O2 CZ in the context of the MNSA; and
To not extend the geographical scope of the existing network sharing to Prague and Brno for a period between 7 and 10 years, in order to ensure that each player continues to deploy its own 2G, 3G and 4G networks in full independence in these two large cities, to the benefit of consumers.

The commission accepted those final commitments which are going to remain in force until 28 October 2033. A trustee will be in charge of monitoring the implementation and compliance with the commitments.

(European Commission – 11.07.2022)

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EUROPEAN COMMISSION - COMMITMENTS FROM T-MOBILE CZ, CETIN AND O2 CZ ON CZECH NETWORK SHARING

This document provides general information on the subject and does not constitute a legal opinion or recommendation. Consulting a specialist is recommended before taking an action. No claim arising from the content of or relating to this document can be asserted against NAZALI.