Euractiv reveals Gigabit Infrastructure Act
Access to public buildings, coordination of civil works, streamlining of permit procedures and single information points are at the centre of the EU executive’s legislation to fast-track the deployment of high-capacity networks like 5G, according to an undated draft obtained by news agency Euractiv. The European Commission is due to present a regulation on measures to reduce the cost of deploying gigabit electronic communications networks, the Gigabit Infrastructure Act. The proposal is a revision of the Broadband Cost Reduction Directive (BCRD), Euractiv’s technology editor Luca Bertuzzi has revealed.
The Directive was adopted in 2014 to cut costs and expedite the preparation for a high-speed digital infrastructure. However, it was largely ignored or misinterpreted by the member states, prompting the Commission to move toward a regulation that does not need to be transposed into national law. “This regulation aims to facilitate and stimulate the rollout of very high-capacity networks by promoting the joint use of existing physical infrastructure and by enabling a more efficient deployment of new physical infrastructure so that such networks can be rolled out at a lower cost and faster,” the draft says.
The revision of the BCRD was made more urgent by the pressing need to invest in upgrading digital infrastructure to keep up with the growing bandwidth demand. The BCRD introduced the obligation for telecom providers to provide access to physical infrastructure to other operators that are rolling out elements of new communications networks. The definition of network operator has been extended to include providers of physical wireless infrastructure like tower companies. This increasingly present business reality plays a pivotal role in 5G deployment.
The draft Act extends the access right to all infrastructure owned or controlled by public sector bodies functional to the deployment, except for reasons of public security, safety and health, as well as their historical values.