The regulation of electronic communications must evolve in step with technological transformation and the new competitive dynamics of the digital ecosystem. Regulatory frameworks, largely designed during earlier stages of market liberalization, need to adapt to an environment characterized by technological convergence, the emergence of new players and services, and growing needs for investment, innovation, security, and resilience of networks and the broader digital ecosystem.
At Telefónica, we advocate for modern, simple, and predictable regulatory frameworks that encourage investment and innovation and enable the sector to address its structural and economic challenges, with the goal of providing customers with the best connectivity and access to digital services. Regulation should consider the competitive conditions of each market, avoid unnecessary or disproportionate burdens, and create the right incentives for the deployment and modernization of digital infrastructure. This evolution is particularly relevant across the different markets in which Telefónica operates, each with distinct regulatory and competitive realities, but all sharing the common challenge of ensuring advanced, sustainable, and resilient networks.
Resilience should be understood in a broad sense, beyond cybersecurity alone: as the ability of networks to ensure continuity of connectivity services, anticipate and respond to crises or disruptions, and recover from them. An appropriate regulatory framework must recognize that strengthening this capability requires sustained investment, planning, and operational capacity.
The European Union Case: The Digital Networks Act
In the European Union, the need to modernize the regulatory framework is particularly important. The current electronic communications framework, although appropriate during the early stages of market liberalization, has become outdated in light of the profound transformation of the digital ecosystem and new competitive dynamics. Its complexity and regulatory fragmentation continue to hinder the sector’s ability to achieve the scale and investment capacity required to compete in an environment shaped by an accelerating technological race.
Against this backdrop, the proposal for a Digital Networks Act emerged as Europe’s flagship initiative to strengthen the sector and enhance its competitiveness in a rapidly evolving technological environment. However, despite the expected progress it introduces, the European Commission’s proposal needs to be more ambitious to create a long-term regulatory environment that provides adequate incentives for investment and innovation and helps strengthen the resilience of European digital infrastructure.
With the appropriate amendments, the Digital Networks Act can become a key regulatory tool enabling the telecommunications sector to realize its full potential, while strengthening its competitiveness, investment capacity, and the resilience of networks that constitute essential infrastructure for the economy and society.
Digital Networks Act
Our Proposal
Spectrum
Ensure the immediate application of the new framework to licenses expiring before 2035.
Reduce and clarify exceptions to automatic renewal.
Strengthen EU guidelines on spectrum pricing (fees and reserve prices) to support investment.
Limit mandatory spectrum sharing to exceptional cases of clear and persistent underutilization, while preserving priority rights.Access Regulation and Copper Switch-Off
Maintain flexibility in market-driven migration processes while removing the mandatory copper network switch-off date.
Assess the suitability of the Gigabit Infrastructure Act before imposing additional Significant Market Power obligations.
Move away from default cost orientation, including in wholesale voice termination markets and access to physical infrastructure.
Avoid imposing an EU-wide harmonized access product without clear evidence of market benefits.Open Internet and ePrivacy Regulation
Modernize Open Internet Regulation to enable innovative standalone 5G services and differentiated quality offerings.
Simplify unnecessary restrictions on traffic management.
Fully repeal the ePrivacy Directive.
Integrate communications confidentiality into horizontal EU legislation, such as the GDPR, ensuring technologically neutral, cross-sectoral, and future-proof protection.Conciliation Mechanism
Replace voluntary conciliation with mandatory negotiations.
Introduce binding dispute resolution mechanisms.
Simplify governance mechanisms to reduce procedural complexity.Security and Resilience
Remove sector-specific security provisions.
Avoid linking authorizations or spectrum rights to other regulations under parallel negotiation.
Clarify the roles and responsibilities of EU and national authorities to prevent overlaps and uncertainty.
Require prior technical consultation for any delegated or implementing act.
