EU Commission Announces Digital Networks Act Proposal

On 21 January, the EU Commission published its much anticipated Digital Networks Act (DNA). The Act aims to update the EU’s network rules to further enable innovative technology like AI and Cloud.

Resilience and preparedness

Resilience and Preparedness in its proposal, the European Commission considers that, given the essential role of networks in the functioning of society and the economy, obligations and cooperation mechanisms must be established to ensure the availability and capabilities of networks and services during major crises. The proposal provides for the adoption of a report by BEREC (the EU agency for electronic communications) titled the ‘Union Preparedness Plan for Digital Infrastructures’. This report will include an assessment, common operational recommendations, and crisis management practices; it will also clarify the respective roles of EU bodies and national competent authorities regarding monitoring, coordination, and response.

Passporting and cooperation

The proposal puts forward the creation of a ‘single passport’ system for electronic communication services. This means that once a company receives authorisation from one relevant EU Member State authority to conduct business, it is able to operate across all other Member States. The Act also aims to prioritise security and coordination, saying that national regulators, the European Commission, and groups such as BEREC will work together to ensure rules are applied in a coherent and harmonised way across the EU. This will be supplemented by ‘clear guidelines’ produced by BEREC, designed to clarify how companies and government authorities should interact with one another.

Resources

The Act identifies radio spectrum and numbering as ‘strategic public goods’ and seeks to establish common principles and objectives for coordinated strategic planning and management at the EU level. It also announces the future creation of an EU spectrum strategy and roadmaps to provide predictability and ensure ‘alignment with wider EU policy objectives’.

Much of this coordination and harmonisation is achieved through the establishment of EU-wide tools, such as the ‘spectrum single market procedure’, common authorisation conditions, ‘one-stop-shop’ procedures, and EU authorisations (including a specific framework for satellite networks and services). Specifically, the legislation seeks to establish EU-level authorisations for satellite spectrum. In parallel, it provides a new framework for pan-European numbering resources and sets out rules governing their management.

Phasing out copper

The European Commission aims to establish a framework for the transition from legacy copper networks to fibre. This transition will be implemented through national plans that detail which areas will have copper switched off, the specific timeline for doing so, and the measures in place to support the migration to fibre.

Access to land and SMP

A central feature of the Digital Networks Act is the explicitly operator-neutral design of the Significant Market Power (SMP) regime. The European Commission intends to prioritise ‘investment-friendly’ rules and promote the harmonisation of access products. To stimulate fibre take-up, the rules will maintain the right to access in-building wiring upon request. Additionally, the DNA will empower national regulatory authorities to use symmetric measures to tackle local bottlenecks by imposing access requirements on local fibre networks.

Rights for end-users

The legislation guarantees all EU citizens (particularly those with low incomes or disabilities) the right to affordable, ‘adequate’ internet and voice communication services. Rather than leaving the definition of ‘adequate’ to chance, the Act establishes a standardised EU-wide process for Member States to determine the minimum bandwidth consumers should enjoy. Furthermore, aside from strictly defined exceptions, the legislation reinforces net neutrality principles by guaranteeing end-users the right to access and distribute content, and to use the applications and terminal equipment of their choice.

Governance

Finally, the DNA aims to further consolidate EU-level governance by integrating and strengthening the roles of BEREC, RSPB, and the ODN.

Points of interest

The primary issue that both telecom operators and online service providers, such as Google and Netflix, were awaiting was whether the European Commission would introduce fees on the latter to help fund the networks that carry their data. This proved not to be the case, much to the disappointment of some telecoms operators. Instead, the Commission decided to introduce a voluntary conciliation mechanism to resolve disputes. This mechanism has displeased both groups with telecom operators calling to make it mandatory and online platforms finding it unnecessary altogether, arguing that cooperation between online service providers and telecom operators is already a reality, making the new system redundant.

The decision on whether to introduce network fees is also influenced by the currently strained relationship between the EU and the US. Indeed, as part of a US-EU trade deal in late August 2025, the EU committed (under point 17) not to introduce network fees. However, the recent decision by the European Parliament’s INTA committee to suspend the deal until “Greenland threats cease” may yet affect the ongoing discussion.

Next steps

The proposal will now be sent to EU Member States and the European Parliament, where both sides will need to establish their negotiating positions before beginning interinstitutional negotiations and agreeing on a final version of the text. Do not hesitate to reach out to techUK should you have any questions on the proposal.  

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