Mobile backhaul serves to connect individual base stations to the mobile network and can be implemented using copper, fibre or wireless point-to-point links. Dark fibre is a passive fibre infrastructure which can be included in the wholesale market for dedicated capacity (market 2 / 2020).

Only three countries (Austria, Netherlands and UK) of the 19 analysed include dark fibre in market 2/2020.

Most regulators exclude dark fibre from the relevant products of market 2/2020 because it is not considered as an alternative to leased lines, or because market 2/2020 should only include active products.

In contrast, some regulators do include dark fibre because they consider it an alternative to Ethernet services and to leased lines, and because it provides flexible inputs to downstream services.

Our latest benchmark also shows whether the relevant product market includes access to (mobile) backhaul.

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