In September 2021, the EC published a legislative proposal for a
Decision of the European Parliament and of the Council establishing
the 2030 Policy Programme ‘Path to the Digital Decade’. The
proposal sets ambitious targets to be met by Member States by 2030
on the following four key pillars: a digitally skilled population
and highly skilled digital professionals; secure and sustainable
digital infrastructures (target is to have all European households
connected to gigabit speeds and all populated areas covered by 5G);
digital transformation of businesses; and digitisation of public
services. The European Parliament and Council will need to endorse
the targets through the regular EU legislative procedure.
Furthermore, in February 2022 the EC proposed European digital
rights and principles, covering issues including inclusion, freedom
of choice online, online safety and security, and sustainable
digitisation.
Addressing the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, the Next
Generation EU package is the Union’s means to support the recovery
processes in EU Member States. The bulk of the proposed recovery
measures are funded by a new temporary recovery instrument, the EU
Recovery and Resilience Facility (‘RRF’), worth nearly €750
billion, which was adopted in December 2020. A significant amount
is allocated towards digital and green initiatives, with a minimum
threshold of 20% of the RRF to be allocated to digital and 37% to
green initiatives. As of 31 March 2022, the EC had approved the
national plans under the RRF for 24 EU Member States, of which
Czech Republic, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, Romania
and Spain are within Vodafone’s footprint.
In March 2022, the European Body of Regulators (‘BEREC’) published
a draft update to the BEREC Guidelines on Net Neutrality, in
response to the recent CJEU rulings on zero-rating practices. BEREC
interprets the rulings to prohibit all price-differentiation
practices that are not application agnostic. This would include
Vodafone Pass tariff, which is currently offered in eight EU
markets. Stakeholders had until 14 April 2022 to provide feedback,
and BEREC intends to publish the final Guidelines in June 2022.
Germany
In October 2021, the national regulatory authority (‘BNetzA’)
published its draft regulation regarding the wholesale access
markets (so-called Market 3a). In the draft, BNetzA proposes no
significant changes in relation to the regulation of the copper
network access but has suggested a light touch regulation of fibre
access (‘FTTH’).
For the first time in Germany, an access regime based on full
equivalence of input (‘EoI’) is intended to enforce the equal
treatment of wholesale demand and Deutsche Telekom’s (‘DT’) retail
arm. In addition, BNetzA proposes improved access to DT’s passive
infrastructure (ducts, masts) with significant market power (‘SMP’)
obligations to open DT’s passive network, including regulated
prices for the first time. This would ensure Vodafone Germany’s
wholesale-based very high-speed digital subscriber line (‘VDSL’)
business in the future, improve cost effective build out of
Vodafone Germany’s own networks using ducts, and eliminate the risk
of complete deregulation of DT’s fibre networks. The final
regulation for the wholesale access markets is expected by the end
of the second quarter of 2022.
Licences for frequency allocations at 800MHz, parts of 1800MHz, and
2600MHz will expire at the end of 2025. Vodafone Germany currently
holds allocations at 800MHz and 2600MHz. BNetzA is therefore
assessing its options on how to proceed on the reallocation of this
spectrum. It may either re-auction the spectrum, or prolong the
existing licences, or a combination of these. BNetzA is currently
consulting with stakeholders on approach and is expected to make a
final decision on next steps by the end of 2023 at the latest.
In response to a preliminary reference from the National Court in
Germany, on 2 September 2021, the CJEU issued three judgments
related to zero-rated commercial offers of Vodafone Germany and DT.
The judgements concluded that the specific zero-rated offers that
were the subject of the judgments, and which included an exclusion
of roaming or tethering, or a limitation on the bandwidth for
certain categories of application respectively, were not compliant
with the Open Internet Regulation (‘OIR’). On 27 April 2022, BNetzA
consequently issued an order, announcing that Vodafone Pass is not
compliant with OIR, and that Vodafone Germany must, firstly, stop
marketing Pass from 1 July 2022 and must migrate existing Pass
customers to alternative tariffs by 31 March 2023.
The IT Security Draft Law (‘IT SiG 2.0’), which lays down rules for
using vendors of critical components in critical infrastructure,
was adopted in May 2021. IT SiG 2.0 envisages two pillars to ensure
network security based on, firstly, mandatory certification of
critical components and, secondly, establishing the trustworthiness
of the vendors of such critical components following clearly
defined criteria and processes. To the extent these are not met,
there will be the possibility of removing components from
untrustworthy vendors. Components are deemed critical when they are
used for ‘critical functions’, which are defined by BNetzA in
agreement with the Federal Office for Information Security
(‘BSI’).