Swedish regulator applies new broadband law forcing Telia to open ducts

Sweden’s Post & Telecom Agency (Post & Telestyrelsen, PTS) has ordered incumbent telco Telia to provide access to its cabling ducts to allow a community association to deploy its own fibre broadband network, in the first settlement dispute under a new law designed to promote high speed broadband expansion which took effect in July. Telia had refused the request of Torptappans Samfallighetsforening – a community association of approximately 30 properties outside Stockholm – which had asked to build a fibre network in Telia ducts within the association area, but the PTS decided yesterday that the telco must enable such access to the association under ‘fair and reasonable terms’. The decision is supported by the ‘Law on Measures for the Development of Broadband Networks’ which entered force on 1 July 2016. The law asserts that any party planning to build a fibre broadband network has rights to use existing ducts under certain conditions, thereby reducing rollout costs, whilst establishing a framework for dispute resolution between duct infrastructure owners (whether in telecoms or other sectors) and would-be network builders, based on EU directives.