KPN to Intensify Assault on Cable Companies

OPTA, the Dutch NRA, has released preliminary regulatory changes for the Dutch telephony, broadband and leased line markets for the period 2009-2011. A consultation period will run from July 29 to September 8 2008. Definitive new regulation is set to be written into law before the end of this year.

1. Main findings (more detail below, under 4):

• End to fixed telephony retail price regulation for consumers. KPN can step up its competitive efforts against cable.
• Services-based competition on FTTC (WBA, since SDF access is not viable) and infrastructure-based competition on FTTH (ODF access). It looks like we will have a regulatory patchwork in geographical terms. MDF locations serving no less than 50% of the population will remain open. (I'm not sure if the 50% is new to the market.)
• Service-based competition on cable networks, but no access for KPN. I doubt if this will catch on among cash-strapped altnets or new entrants.
• Fixed termination will move to symmetry next year. Will KPN's charges go up or altnets' charges go down? Probably the latter, in which case the long-term benchmark for mobile termination goes down as well.

KPN was quick to

cry victory

and point out that this will help it better compete against cable (basically a two-player market: UPC, owned by Liberty Global, and Ziggo, owned by Warburg Pincus and Cinven). Let's put this into a perspective.

2. Telco/cableco convergence

Telcos and cablecos are converging in the sense that their product portfolios are starting to look like mirror images. Independent ISPs are struggling and selling out. So now incumbent telcos are increasingly taking aim at cablecos.

Let's first see how cablecos and telcos are moving toward each other:

• Both offering triple play, even though IPTV, remains a complex product. On the other hand, cable lacks a mobile offering (other than cheap resale) of its own.
• Cablecos (and satcos) moving into the LLU market. Sky of course, now even looking at FTTC. Numericable is a wholesale LLU customer of Completel. Versatel is looking at AKF (but the Zon/Sonaecom merger is not going to happen).
• Several cablecos are considering FTTH (Cox, Wow, Videotron, Compton).
• CableLabs, the US cable association, is trying to turn Tru2way (middleware) into an interactive TV platform for both cable and telco networks.

3. Telco strategies against cable

Next, let's see what telcos are doing to kill the cable guy:

• In the US, AT&T (T), Verizon (VZ) and Qwest (Q) have set up Movearoo.com. Customers moving to an area served by a different Bell are helped to remain telco customers, instead of defecting to cable.
• In the Netherlands, KPN hasn't exactly made much of secret of how much its Digitenne [DTT] product earns them: zip, or rather a negative sum (see it as a SAC). Digitenne has just one mission: pull away as many cable customers as possible.
• Thanks to OPTA, KPN can now follow competitors into targeted price reductions for fixed telephony. We can expect a price war that will erode KPN's margins further, but it will serve their priority #1: expand market share.

4. Main points from the new rules

Here are some more details.

• Fixed telephony consumer market: end to retail regulation (both minimum and maximum tariffs). OPTA says competition is sound, due to CPS, WLR (which will be extended to the business market) and cable telephony. However, after 2011 it expects it will be able to abolish regulation of the wholesale services (CPS and WLR) as well.
• Business markets: increased wholesale regulation to stimulate competition, after which the retail market may be deregulated.
• NGN, NGAN: KPN is moving away from MDF access to both SDF access (for FTTC networks) and ODF access (for FTTH networks) as regulated wholesale products. OPTA has decided not to demand WBA (wholesale broadband access) wherever ODF access is available, since it wants to stimulate infrastructure-based competition as much as possible. At the same time OPTA acknowledges that SDF access is not a viable platform for competition, and therefore it will demand WBA offerings in FTTC markets. In both cases, KPN will be granted a decent return, based on the EDC system (embedded direct cost), which by the way is contested by competitors. Fortunately, OPTA appears to be aware of the necessity of a long-term view (longer than the traditional 3-year regulatory review period) and regulatory certainty for FTTH investors.
• Broadcasting: UPC and Ziggo will have to open their networks to services-based competition, because Digitenne, IPTV and Sat-TV haven't been able to really change the cable market (in terms of market shares or prices). Third parties will be able to take over the customer relationship (but they will have to take care of the related broadcasting rights for analogue TV themselves). This is aimed at third-parties; should KPN be granted a license to resell cable TV, then it could be incentivised to delay investments in IPTV and All-IP. In other words, KPN will not be a cable reseller (just as cablocos are not allowed to be KPN resellers).
• All-IP: KPN is planning the closure of many MDF locations. There is an MoU with the biggest unbundlers (Tele2/Versatel, T-Mobile/Orange, BBned/TI). MDF locations covering 50% of the population will remain open for existing LLU offerings. No detailed migration deals have been signed however for the other locations. Therefore, LLU and WBA regualtion will remain in place.
• Fixed termination: OPTA will end the asymmetry (KPN charges are lower than competitors') at the start of 2009.