Belgium - Telecoms Infrastructure, Operators, Regulations - Statistics and Analyses

Synopsis

Belgium’s telecom market has long benefited from comprehensive DSL and cable networks, complemented by limited but increasingly prevalent fibre deployments. Though relatively small, the market has attracted investment from some of the region’s major players, including Liberty Global and Orange Group. There have been significant developments in the competitive landscape in recent years, fostered by regulatory measures which require cablecos to allow competitors access to their networks. This has enabled Orange Belgium to become a viable force in the market for bundled services offerings, hitherto dominated by Proximus. Nevertheless, Orange Belgium has seen its influence in the mobile market wane in recent years, principally through having lost two key MVNOs which are now hosted on the network of its main rival BASE, owned by Telenet.

Telenet’s acquisition of BASE in early 2016, and of SFR Belgium in June 2017, has made the telco the second largest in the country, a position bolstered by a strong presence in the TV and broadband sectors.

Broadband penetration has made considerable progress in recent years, largely thanks to regulatory measures to promote wholesale and bitstream access. In the mobile sector LTE availability is nearly universal, while there are ongoing investments in developing applications and services for 5G.

This report provides data and analysis on key aspects of the Belgian telecom market. It assesses the latest statistics on fixed-network services and also reviews key regulatory issues, noting the status of interconnection, local loop unbundling, number portability and carrier preselection. The telecom infrastructure and major fixed-network operators are also profiled.

Key developments:

Regulator issues Strategic Plan covering 2017-19; Mobistar rebrands as Orange Belgium; regulator undergoes structural changes to meet strategic vision; report update includes the regulator’s market data for 2016, regulator’s 2016 annual report, telcos’ financial and operating data to Q1 2017, recent market developments.

Companies mentioned in this report:

Proximus (Belgacom), COLT, Orange Belgium (Mobistar), Scarlet, Tele2, Telenet, Versatel.

1. Synopsis
2. Key statistics
3. Country overview
4. Telecommunications market
- 4.1 Historical overview
- 4.2 Market analysis
5. Regulatory environment
- 5.1 Historic overview
- 5.2 EU regulatory framework
- 5.3 Revised NFR
- 5.4 Regulatory authority
- 5.5 Government policies
- 5.6 Interconnect
- 5.7 Access
- 5.8 Cable network access
- 5.9 Number Portability (NP)
- 5.10 Carrier PreSelection (CPS)
- 5.11 Wholesale Line Rental (WLR)
6. Fixed network operators
- 6.1 Introduction
- 6.2 Proximus
- 6.3 COLT Telecom
- 6.4 Orange Belgium
- 6.5 Scarlet (formerly KPN Belgium)
- 6.6 Tele2 Belgium
- 6.7 Telenet
7. Telecommunications infrastructure
- 7.1 Overview of the national telecom network
- 7.2 Next Generation Network (NGN)
- 7.3 International infrastructure
- 7.4 Cloud services
- 7.5 Smart meters
8. Related reports

Table 1 – Country statistics – 2016
Table 2 – Telecom revenue and investment statistics – 2016
Table 3 – Telephone network statistics – 2016
Table 4 – Internet user statistics – 2016 (e)
Table 5 – Broadband statistics – 2016
Table 6 – Mobile statistics – 2016
Table 7 – National telecommunications authority
Table 8 – Telecom market investment: fixed and mobile by sector – 2006 – 2010; 2014 - 16
Table 9 – Telecom market investment: network and licenses – 2011 - 2016
Table 10 – Telecom investment as a proportion of revenue – 2011 - 2016
Table 11 – Telecom market investment by operator (regulator data) – 2007 - 2013
Table 12 – Retail and wholesale telecom revenue by sector – 2011 - 2016
Table 13 – Total telecom revenue by sector – 2011 - 2016
Table 14 – Fixed voice ARPU – 2008 - 2015
Table 15 – Unbundled loops and access lines (historic) – 2004 - 2009
Table 16 – Fixed numbers ported – 2000 - 2016
Table 17 – Carrier preselect numbers and annual change – 2000 - 2016
Table 18 – Proximus share of fixed-line traffic by type – 2006 - 2012
Table 19 – Fixed-line telephony revenue – 2002 - 2016
Table 20 – Average price for fixed-line call – 2007 - 2013
Table 21 – Fixed-line and mobile traffic volume – 2007 - 2016
Table 22 – Fixed-line traffic by type – 2005 - 2015
Table 23 – Proximus (CBU) access channels – 2007 - 2017
Table 24 – Proximus Group financial data – 2003 - 2017
Table 25 – Proximus revenue by sector – 2004 - 2017
Table 26 – Proximus revenue by operating division – 2007 - 2017
Table 27 – Proximus fixed-line services revenue by sector (CBU) – 2007 - 2017
Table 28 – Proximus monthly ARPU by sector (CBU) – 2005 - 2017
Table 30 – Orange Belgium service revenue by sector – 2007 - 2017
Table 32 – Orange Belgium subscribers by sector – 2008 - 2017
Table 33 – Telenet revenue by sector – 2004 - 2017
Table 34 – Telenet subscribers by sector – 2006 - 2017
Table 35 – Telenet financial data – 2005 - 2017
Table 36 – Telenet subscriber monthly ARPU – 2005 - 2014
Table 37 – Historical – Fixed lines in service and teledensity – 1995; 1997; 1999 - 2009
Table 38 – Fixed lines in service and teledensity – 2010 - 2018
Table 39 – Fixed lines by type – 2006 - 2016

Chart 1 – Total telecom revenue by sector – 2011 – 2016
Chart 2 – Fixed-line traffic by type – 2005 – 2015
Chart 3 – Proximus Group financial data – 2003 - 2017
Chart 4 – Proximus revenue by sector – 2004 - 2017
Chart 5 – Proximus revenue by operating division – 2007 - 2017
Chart 6 – Proximus fixed-line services revenue by sector (CBU) – 2007 - 2017
Chart 7 – Telenet revenue by sector – 2004 - 2017
Chart 8 – Telenet subscribers by sector – 2006 - 2017
Chart 9 – Telenet financial data – 2005 - 2017
Chart 10 – Fixed lines in service and teledensity – 2005 - 2018

Exhibit 1 – EU – The New Regulatory Framework (NRF)
Exhibit 2 – Access and the local loop
Exhibit 3 – Number portability defined

Related Reports

Focus Report Profile

Technologies

Regulations & Government Policies
Telecoms Infrastructure

Number of pages 32

Status Current

Last updated 3 Jul 2017
Update History

Analyst: Henry Lancaster

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Paul, May I congratulate you on a very successful and enjoyable afternoon with the Minister. In providing the roundtable discussions between government and industry, it highlighted the strong interest by stakeholders in Broadband and its implementation but it also presented us with other issues and opportunities that we need to address.

Dominic Schipano, CITT