EU scrutiny puts Sweden’s home-fibre rules on hold

Sweden’s proposed rules to open household fibre networks to more competition are on hold while the European Commission investigates whether the regulator has justified them properly.

The review, opened on 29 October, prevents the Swedish Post and Telecom Authority, PTS, from adopting its draft measures for now. It is not a final veto.

PTS’s proposal covers 63 network owners serving single-family homes. The authority says customers often depend on one fibre network, weakening choice and bargaining power. Apartment-building markets would not face the proposed advance regulation.

The draft rules would require affected owners to give other providers network access on transparent, non-discriminatory terms at fair and reasonable prices.

Brussels accepts defining markets around local networks. But it questions treating operators above 5,000 house connections as having significant market power, excluding smaller networks and applying the same obligations despite different local conditions.

The Commission has not decided how many networks should be regulated. It has two months to examine the competition analysis and three months for its concerns about the proposed obligations, taking European telecom regulators’ advice into account.

For households, this delays a proposed competition measure. It does not itself change an internet contract or establish a lower bill.

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