This consultation document considers competition in the provision of retail and wholesale ISDN30 services, proposing the appropriate relevant markets, analysing those markets and, where appropriate, proposing the regulatory remedies which we consider are needed to address the competition issues we have identified. The proposals set out herein are intended to further the interests of consumers in relevant markets.
ISDN30 is a digital telephone line service that provides up to 30 lines over a common digital bearer circuit. These lines support a wide range of services including basic telephony with additional features to those available on analogue exchange lines. Retail ISDN30 exchange line services are used by businesses which need multiple access lines (typically 8 lines or more) at a particular site. Wholesale ISDN30 exchange line services are purchased by resellers to provide retail services.
The retail product is almost always used by businesses to provide exchange line connectivity to the on-site private branch exchange ('PBX').
Review of retail and wholesale ISDN30 markets (PDF, 754.8 KB)
This statement sets out the conclusions of our review of the retail and wholesale ISDN30 markets following on from the consultation published on 4 May 2010 ( Review of retail and wholesale ISDN30 markets referred to hereafter as the May 2010 consultation ). The May 2010 consultation proposed that retail ISDN30 services were in a discrete product market and that wholesale ISDN30 services were also in a discrete product market.
We further proposed that, in these discrete markets, BT did not have significant market power (SMP) in the retail market in the UK excluding the Hull area whereas KCOM had SMP in the retail market in the Hull area.
At the wholesale level, we proposed that Openreach had SMP in the wholesale market in the UK excluding the Hull area and KCOM had SMP in the wholesale market in the Hull area. We proposed regulatory remedies which we considered were necessary to address the competition concerns that we had found.
This statement now concludes the market review. We discuss respondents views throughout this statement and we have considered all submissions carefully in reaching our conclusions.