The incumbent operator will retain a dominant position over the local loop for many years to come. Interconnection will be the biggest issue in telecommunications in the post-liberalization era. The European Commission is proposing detailed rules that will ensure that operators controlling the local loop grant fast and fair access to all new service providers. These rules are based on existing competition law and on ONP harmonization principles. By the time a court decision is rendered, the new entrant will have been permanently excluded from the market.
Delays favor the incumbent.
Courts also have difficulty making pricing decisions, and forcing recalcitrant parties to enter into agreements. Generally the aggrieved party only has a right to damages. This potential bottleneck consists of proprietary set-top decoders and conditional access technology. In the future world of digital TV, a viewer will probably have only one set-top decoder. Therefore, the entity that first succeeds in distributing set-top decoders to consumers will benefit from a de facto monopoly over local access to those consumers.