A few months ago, Telefónica notified the CNMC (National Markets and Competition Commission) of the sale and subsequent leaseback of a portion of its copper pair network. This operation involves the sale of all the feeder cables for certain exchanges and their immediate leaseback. These are copper cables located between CR0 (the zero chamber or access chamber to the exchange) and the last junction box on the customer side (usually located near the building); therefore, these are not cables within customer buildings.

These would be cables from this section that we have marked in red:

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Telefónica earns income by selling the cables, but continues to use them for its business by leasing them, and the buyer receives the agreed lease and will have the cables available when they are no longer part of Telefónica's network due to the closure of the corresponding exchange.

The CNMC raised the issue in a public consultation open to operators and other agents in the sector (between May 3 and June 10).

Analysis of the sales and lease agreements reveals that, until the regulatory obligations established by the CNMC for copper pairs cease due to the closure of copper exchanges, Telefónica will be solely responsible for continuing to provide wholesale services linked to the traditional network and included in the wholesale local access, wholesale central access, and wholesale high-quality access markets. The buyer assumes no responsibility for the operation, management, or maintenance of the assets; compliance with sector regulations, and in particular the reference offers (which establish the details and procedures for fulfilling the copper pair access obligation), remains exclusively with Telefónica.

Furthermore, Telefónica remains equally responsible for complying with all the steps of the procedure established by the CNMC for the closure of copper exchanges.

A few weeks ago, the decision was notified to the European Commission, which shares the CNMC's conclusions that it is not necessary to modify the established regulatory obligations, and that the same valuations should be applied to any possible subsequent sale of copper assets that Telefónica carries out under similar conditions.

Source: CNMC