Open Access Networks for Austria

The market in Austria has not yet produced any common standards for Open Access Networks that reflect the requirements of all market participants. The strong heterogeneity in products and processes has a negative impact on the development of the Austrian FTTH market ("Fibre to the Home"). In order to be able to exploit the potential for competition and innovation through Open Access Networks, an industry-wide process involving the public sector is therefore necessary. The goal should be the definition, development and application of processes and standards in the FTTH sector that are as uniform as possible across the industry. Uniform processes and standardisation should encompass the value creation levels of passive (Layer 1) and active network access (Layer 2) as well as sales and technical aspects. Although the use of Open Access Networks should basically be on a voluntary basis, there is scope for mandatory measures through funding requirements and (symmetrical) regulation.