In order to ensure competition, the National Market and Competition Commission (CNMC) can regulate the conditions for the provision of services in the broadband Internet access market.
After the relevant market analyses, the CNMC considered it necessary to intervene at the so-called wholesale level. This means that, despite not intervening in the offers to end users (retail level), the CNMC establishes the conditions under which the operator with significant market power, in this case Telefónica de España, must make certain elements and services of its network available to other operators, so that they can form their own broadband services at retail level.
Likewise, the CNMC can impose symmetric obligations, which must be met by all telecommunications operators.
Thus the wholesale regulation establishes the framework for action among operators on the methods and conditions in which they exchange their services, wholesale prices and controls on them, in order to ensure that the market behaves in a transparent and non-discriminatory manner, both between operators and between them and the end users.
In short, wholesale regulation can be grouped into three blocks:
- Obligations and reference offers of the OPSM of regulated services
- Wholesale price control and accounting separation
- Obligations of transparency and non-discrimination
On the other hand, the European Commission also regulates wholesale prices for mobile roaming services, establishing the prices that operators pay each other for using their respective networks.