The Act of 13 June 2005 on electronic communications and the Act of 21 March 1991 on the reform of certain economic public companies grant a number of rights specifically to telecom operators and also impose a number of obligations. For instance, as an operator you have the right to use the public domain or to lay your cables on façades. More information can be found on the page on this website about the rights of telecom operators.
Obviously, you should always fulfil all necessary permit obligations and suchlike.
The most important competent bodies are the local authorities, the road authorities and the regional bodies that issue permits.
The BIPT has listed the competent bodies on this page. This list is not exhaustive and the BIPT stresses the fact that it is imperative to contact the local authorities if you want to roll out fibre at a specific location.
The Broadband Competent Office (BCO) publishes overviews of the regional reglementation on its website.
The BIPT wants to stress the fact that it is imperative to contact the local authority first if you want to roll out fibre at a specific location.
KLIP and KLIM-CICC are the platforms used to exchange information about cables and lines: KLIP is the Flemish platform and KLIM-CICC covers the federal, Walloon and Brussels levels.
GIPOD, PoWalCo and Osiris are the platforms the purpose of which is to coordinate road works and to exchange all information about building sites along roads. GIPOD is the Flemish platform, PoWalCo the Walloon platform and Osiris the Brussels platform.
There is a European Directive, the Broadband Cost Reduction Directive, which entitles telecom operators to use the physical infrastructure of network operators (e.g., for the distribution of gas or transportation services) to roll out a high-speed telecom network, under reasonable conditions. More information can be found on the page about the BCRD.
In addition there is the regulated duct offer from Proximus: for some ducts the BIPT has imposed the obligation for Proximus to grant access. You will find more information on the page about market regulation in Belgium.
The Broadband Cost Reduction Directive imposes the obligation that certain types of work should be coordinated under certain conditions. The Belgian regulation is even more strict in order to limit inconveniences resulting from road work as much as possible. As such there are specific platforms that have to be used to coordinate work and there are also periods during which no new road work is allowed.
Depending on the region there can be exceptions regarding operations that need to be notified with a view to coordination. In some cases for instance, no coordination is required for work done on façades. For this information too we refer you to the pages about the permit procedures. The Broadband Competent Office (BCO) publishes overviews of the regional reglementation on its website.
In principle operators are free to set their own prices unless the BIPT has designated them as operators having significant market power (SMP) and imposed the price control obligation on them. This price control always applies to the wholesale market (the tariffs for other operators who want to use the network), so not to the end-user tariffs.
In the context of fibre networks Proximus has been designated as an SMP operator and therefore its wholesale tariffs are regulated by the BIPT. You will find more information on the page about market regulation in Belgium.
If you want to offer services over fibre, without rolling out fibre yourself, you can use the wholesale access to fibre offered by other operators. There are various types of access: passive access to fibre, whereby you install equipment yourself, active access or resale of an “all-in” service.
To know which operators the BIPT has registered in the “fibre” category, you can consult the list on this site. You can ask those operators about their commercial wholesale offers. It should be noted that not all listed operators have such an offer.
Apart from that there is also the regulated offer of Proximus. Proximus is obliged by the BIPT to open up its fibre network (both FTTH and FTTO) to other operators. Further information is also available on the page about fibre market regulation.
If you want to start as an operator on the Belgian market, we gladly refer you to this page on the BIPT website, which will provide more information.