{"id":16276,"date":"2026-01-29T16:00:48","date_gmt":"2026-01-29T15:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brekoverband.de\/?p=16276"},"modified":"2026-02-04T14:38:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-04T13:38:12","slug":"digital-networks-act-elfa-urges-eu-to-safeguard-competition-and-fibre-investments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brekoverband.de\/en\/2026\/01\/29\/digital-networks-act-elfa-urges-eu-to-safeguard-competition-and-fibre-investments\/","title":{"rendered":"Digital Networks Act: ELFA urges EU to safeguard competition and fibre investments"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brussels, 29 January 2026 \u2013 Today, the European Local Fibre Alliance (ELFA), the European voice of local <\/strong>
\nfibre operators, convened a policy event in Brussels with representatives from the European Commission <\/strong>
\nand regulatory bodies to exchange views on the draft Digital Networks Act (DNA) and the future of the <\/strong>
\nEuropean telecommunications sector. At the event, ELFA called for rules that strengthen competition, <\/strong>
\nresilience and sustainable investment in Europe\u2019s digital infrastructures.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Setting the stage for the exchange, the Alliance, representing roughly 900 European fibre network
\noperators, welcomed the European Commission\u2019s draft Digital Networks Act as an important step
\nforward.<\/p>\n

ELFA underlined that Europe\u2019s digital infrastructure policy should prioritise long-term, sustainable
\ncompetition by supporting a diverse ecosystem of actors \u2013 including publicly owned, regional and locally<\/p>\n

anchored fibre networks \u2013 rather than attempting to engineer cross-border consolidation in fixed
\ninfrastructure markets. A diverse ecosystem of independent fibre operators helps to avoid over
\ndependence on a limited number of national incumbents, thus improving resilience, redundancy, and
\nconnectivity.<\/p>\n

Contrary to the current draft, ELFA called for the DNA to be adopted as a directive, not a regulation, to
\npreserve flexibility for national implementation in a highly diverse market landscape and to avoid
\ndestabilising well-functioning national models.<\/p>\n

On wholesale access regulation, ELFA commended the Commission for its proposal to maintain the
\nexisting ex-ante approach and underlined that the current market situation in several Member Stated,
\nstill dominated by the significant market power of the incumbents, does not yet allow for a general shift
\ntowards ex-post regulation in those countries. ELFA emphasised that such transition must be handled
\nwith precaution to avoid re-monopolisation risks and to preserve the competitive conditions needed for
\nefficient fibre deployment.<\/p>\n

Regarding the transition from legacy copper networks to future-proof fibre networks, ELFA supported
\nthe fact that the draft DNA aims to set a clear, rule-based and non-discriminatory framework.
\nELFA also welcomed the Commission\u2019s push for an accelerated migration to fibre, while urging that the<\/p>\n

DNA prevents distortions of competition and avoids transferring significant market power from legacy
\ncopper to fibre networks.<\/p>\n

On spectrum policy, ELFA highlighted the strategic role of next-generation Wi-Fi for end-user
\nperformance in fibre-based connectivity and asked the EU to reserve spectrum within the upper 6 GHz
\nband for license-exempt Wi-Fi, rather than sharing it with 5G\/6G.<\/p>\n

ELFA also welcomed the EU\u2019s ambition for a sustainable digital transition and called for the EU
\nTaxonomy to explicitly recognise fibre network deployment as a sustainable investment \u2013 paired with
\nstreamlined compliance requirements in line with the digital omnibus objective of reducing bureaucratic
\nreporting burdens.ELFA called for a competitive, open and transparent wholesale environment for both fixed and mobile
\nnetworks and for stronger safeguards against anti-competitive practices such as strategic overbuild.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Brussels, 29 January 2026 \u2013 Today, the European Local Fibre […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":16279,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16276","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-press-releases"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brekoverband.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16276","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brekoverband.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brekoverband.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brekoverband.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brekoverband.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16276"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/brekoverband.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16276\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16285,"href":"https:\/\/brekoverband.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16276\/revisions\/16285"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brekoverband.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brekoverband.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16276"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brekoverband.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16276"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brekoverband.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}