Expert witness for a telecommunications operator whose acquisition of another FTTH ISP was blocked by the regulator based on market dominance grounds

telecommunications-operator

Scope of work

Our client, an integrated telco operator in North America, required support in the revision of the preliminary ruling from the regulator, who identified a potentially significant market power (SMP) situation in specific regions of the country after our client’s acquisition of an FTTH operator that offered triple-play services (pay-tv, broadband, and fixed telephony).

The regulator stated in the Preliminary Ruling that by means of the acquisition, the only competitor with NGA fixed networks would disappear and our client would concentrate on the Pay-TV market.

Solution

We developed a comprehensive assessment of Pay-TV services, broadcasting, OTT platforms, coverage of the incumbent operator’s fixed networks, the substitution of traditional packages and a comprehensive international benchmarking exercise.

We performed a geographic analysis of the presence of Pay-TV operators with satellite technologies and others with the required infrastructure to offer Pay-TV services using the mandated Reference Offers of the incumbent operator. Furthermore, we assessed trends in the substitution of Pay-TV services with Internet + OTT packages and broadcast + OTT packages, showing that OTT services were in fact a substitute for Pay-TV services and therefore represented a real competitor to be considered in the regulatory concentration analysis.

Result

We provided our client with a review of the preliminary ruling with a detailed counter- argumentation to the regulator’s points, demonstrating that after the acquisition the Pay-TV market would not be concentrated in the regions under evaluation. We finally presented our conclusions and expert view in front of the regulator.

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