Local Loop Unbundling Measures and Policies in the European Union

Abstract

Recent European policies have very early identified (European Commission, 1999) the great challenge for the European Union (EU) to promote various liberalisation and harmonisation measures in the relevant electronic communications markets to support initiatives for competition, innovation, development, and growth (Chochliouros & Spiliopoulou-Chochliourou, 2003). In order to fully seize the growth and job potential of the digital, knowledge-based economy, it has been decided that businesses and citizens should have access to an inexpensive, world-class communications infrastructure and a wide range of modern services, especially to support “broadband” evolution and multimedia penetration. Moreover, different means of access must prevent information exclusion, while information technologies should be used to renew urban and regional development and to promote environmentally sound technologies. A fundamental policy was to introduce greater competition in local access networks and support local loop unbundling (LLU) in order to help bring about a substantial reduction in the costs of using the Internet and to promote high-speed and “always-on” access.