Public consultation on the draft BEREC Report on access conditions to State aid funded networks

Deadline to submit contributions: 13 November 2026

During the 68th BEREC ordinary meetings (1-2 October 2026), the Board of Regulators adopted the draft BEREC Report on access conditions to State aid funded networks [BoR (26) 139] for public consultation.

Privately funded broadband networks have reached substantial coverage in commercially viable areas in many EU Member States. However, public funds need to be put at use to cover the remainder of the territory, households and/or population in market failure areas, since the economic drivers for private deployment are lacking in difficult-to-reach, remote areas.

State aid has significantly supported the deployment of Fibre-To-The-Premise (FTTP) networks in recent years, particularly through the Recovery and Resilience Facility, extending very high-capacity networks in areas that would otherwise have been underserved or not served at all.

State aid funded networks must be established in accordance with the Guidelines on State aid for broadband networks and General Block Exemption Regulation respectively, and National Regulatory Authorities (NRAs) have to be consulted on the wholesale access products, conditions for wholesale access and pricing aspects, for the establishment of fair and non-discriminatory terms.

Against this background, BEREC developed an overview of NRAs’ approaches to evaluating the regulated wholesale access services to State aided networks from an economic and technical perspective. BEREC’s work aims to enhance experience sharing, improve NRAs’ future interventions, and, to the extent possible, harmonise practices on the design of wholesale access obligations attached to publicly funded networks.

BEREC’s report focuses on access to fibre networks in an FTTP topology, covering both active and passive services. The dedicated questionnaire primarily sought information on access products, pricing methodologies, implementation practices and monitoring mechanisms.