Common Characteristics of Layer 2 Wholesale Access Products in the EU (Draft Report for public consultation)

Cara Schwarz-Schilling, BNetzA

Co-Chair NGN EWG

WIK/TNO Public workshop – Access and interoperability conditions

Brussels, 8 July 2015

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Introduction

BEREC adopted a draft BEREC Report on “Common Characteristics of Layer 2 Wholesale Access Products in the EU” on 4

June 2015 for public consultation

The public consultation started on 8 June 2015 and ends on 10 July 2015

The draft report and information on the public consultation are available on the BEREC website

http://berec.europa.eu/eng/document_register/subject_matter/berec/public_consultations/5051-notice-for-the-launch-of-public-consultation-on-the-document-on-common-characteristics-of-layer-2-wholesale-access-products-in-the-eu

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Background and Goals

Several countries have imposed VULA/enhanced bitstream products (layer 2 wholesale access products - L2 WAP) in the

last years

Regulatory context:

L2 WAP have been imposed on Markets 4/2007 and 5/2007(or 3a/2014 and 3b/2014)

M4/2007: Physical unbundl ing no longer possible/v iable due to NGA rol lout

M5/2007: Provide al ternat ive operators wi th more f reedom compared to layer 3 product

This report identif ies common characteristics of L2 WAP of 10 countries: AT, BE, DE, DK, ES, FR, GR, IT, NL, UK

For both L2 WAP wi th local and regional handover

Goals:

Analyse L2 WAP to ident i fy common character is t ics and get ins ight where products di ffer

Foster the knowledge t ransfer between NRAs

Contr ibute to harmonisat ion

Not: being normat ive / recommend best pract ice

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Findings

NRAs in general have pursued common goals: Giving the alternative operator a high degree of freedom to provide different

services (voice, broadband, TV, business services, etc.)

Due to their complexity, L2 WAP have usually been designed in lengthy processes with participation of stakeholders and

the NRA

Not al l characteristics analysed have led to a common characteristic being defined (e.g. multicast)

Mult icast f rame repl icat ion funct ional i ty is only supported by L2 WAP i f there is a demand

In order to foster the knowledge transfer a detai led description of the product characteristics is available in the annex of

the report

In total, nine common characteristics were identif ied

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Common Characteristics (i)

Common characteristics of L2 WAP with local handover

1 (Technology): The L2 WAP is based on Ethernet

The L2 WAP analysed are based on the Ethernet protocol and provide an Ethernet serv ice to ANOs

2 (Availabil i ty ): The L2 WAP is (or wil l be) available at least in NGA rol lout areas

Where physical unbundl ing is no longer technical ly possible or economical ly v iable

3 (CPE/Modem): ANOs can use and configure their own CPE/modems at least in case of FTTC/B

This enables ANOs to fur ther di fferent iate their serv ices and to innovate

The CPE/modems of the ANOs must not harm the network integr i ty and must interwork wi th the network of the provider of the L2 WAP

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Common Characteristics (ii)

4 (Bandwidth): ANOs have the possibi l i ty to control the speed of their services within the l imit(s) of the bandwidth

profi le(s) of the subscriber access l ine.

This enables ANOs to di fferent iate the down- and upload speed of serv ices f rom other operators.

In al l count r ies analysed asymmetr ic bandwidth prof i les are avai lable.

5 (Quality of Service) : The L2 WAP with local handover provides at least ostensibly uncontended bandwidth or a bandwidth

with a defined QoS.

This enable ANOs to choose the qual i ty of thei r serv ices and to provide serv ices wi th higher QoS requirements.

6 (Traff ic Priorit isation): The L2 WAP supports different traff ic priorit ies

This increases the f lex ibi l i ty of ANOs in the design of their products

I t enables ANOs to use the bandwidth of L2 WAP more eff ic ient ly

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Common Characteristics (iii)

7 (Number of VLANs): The L2 WAP with local handover provides several VLANs per end user unless additional wholesale

products are available

This may fac i l i tate the provis ioning of mult ip le serv ices and t raff ic forwarding

8 (Customer Identif ication) : The L2 WAP enables ANOs to identify their end users

This enables ANOs to prov ide indiv idual serv ices to their subscr ibers and to author ise for each customer indiv idual ly which network

resources (serv ices) the customer can use

9 (Security) : The L2 WAP enables ANOs to apply security measures

ANOs have the possibi l i ty to apply any secur i ty measure they would l ike to use at layer 3 and higher layers.

Common characteristics of L2 WAP with regional handover

Same as wi th local PoH except No. 5 (QoS) and Nr. 7 (Number of VLANs)

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Next Steps

BEREC wil l publish a consultation report as well as the final version of the report “Common Characteristics of Layer 2

Wholesale Access Products in the EU” in October 2015

The next step is to develop the report on common characteristics into a BEREC Common Posit ion in order to further

contribute to the harmonisation of product specif ications for those wholesale access products

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Thank you.

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