The Estonian Competition Authority (ECA) has called on non-profit organisation the Estonian Broadband Development Foundation (Eesti Lairiba Arenduse, ELA) to improve access to the country’s public-private fibre network, which has been dubbed ‘EstWIN’. The EstWIN scheme, which aims to pass 98% of households with a 100Mbps broadband connection, is being managed by the ELA.
A report from ERR cites the ECA as saying that the conditions for gaining access to EstWIN infrastructure are currently skewed towards the larger telcos, while smaller ISPs which focus on rural areas are offered less favourable terms. The ECA wants the access conditions for these smaller players eased so they can improve their broadband service offerings for customers in less populated regions. The ELA has so far invested around EUR58 million (USD68 million) in the EstWIN project, 86% of which has come from public sources.