Public Consultation on Managing the Greek City MANs

The Special Secretariat for Digital Planning announced today the public consultation for the terms and conditions based on which an administrator for the city metropolitan fiber networks will be selected.

Currently the MANs cover primarily the center of each city and selected areas of interest in the urban periphery and hubs all public buildings and municipal services to a central location. It also expands to a large number of OTE’s outside cabinets (facilitating a potential sub-loop unbundling regulation).

According to the announcement the Secretariat’s goal is to have selected and approved a MAN administrator by  the 1st of January 2011. The MAN Administrator will be responsible for wholesale services (unbundling and capacity offerings) over the infrastructure for a period of 25 years.

The consultation asks questions about the criteria of grouping distributed MANs in greater operating entities, the tender specifications, the terms, conditions and financing of the network expansion etc. It is critical in the sense that these networks hold the potential to speed up broadband development in the country if they are properly integrated in the national broadband strategy.

If you want to have a look, the consultation is available in Greek and English here. The deadline for contributions is the 19th of April 2010.

For background on the story read the following posts on Broadband Prime:

• Municipal Fiber Excitements
• Update on Greek FTTH Endeavours
• Legislation Guidelines for the Greek FTTH Project
• OTE announces VDSL rollout and upsets Greece’s FTTH Plans