‘licence’ means the act of conferring the right as granted by the Eurosystem central banks to a T2S network service provider to provide to the directly connected T2S actors a set of predefined connectivity services, on the basis of which a T2S network service provider shall design, implement, deliver and operate solutions intended to exchange securely electronic data between the directly connected T2S actors and the T2S platform;

‘connectivity services’ means the direct network connection to the T2S platform that a directly connected T2S actor requires a T2S network service provider to provide in order to benefit from, or perform tasks and responsibilities related to, the T2S services;

The purpose of the selection procedure is to entrust network service providers to provide a set of predefined connectivity services, on the basis of which the T2S network service providers design, implement, deliver and operate connectivity solutions intended to securely exchange business information between the directly connected T2S actors and the T2S platform.

The measure will apply until competing network operators have built a sufficiently wide backbone network and a large enough customer base to enable them to invest further in regional high-speed (“broadband”) services, such as access to the web and services connecting subscribers’ premises to the network (“local loops” ).

(8) Whereas, in accordance with Directive 90/388/EEC which does not apply to telex, mobile radiotelephony, paging and satellite services, Member States shall withdraw all special or exclusive rights for the supply of telecommunications services other than voice telephony; whereas this is the commercial provision for the public of the direct transport and switching of speech in real-time between public switched network termination points, enabling any user to use equipment connected to such a network termination point in order to comm ...[+++]unicate with another termination point;

Table 1 Current provisions concerning use of cable TV networks for the provision of telecommunications services can be summarised as follows: Use of cable TV networks for liberalised services Belgium No Denmark No France Non-voice services only Germany No Greece ---------* Ireland No legal provision Italy ---------* Luxembourg No legal provision Netherlands Limited use Portugal No Spain No UK Yes Source: "L'impact de l'authorisation de la fourniture de services de télécommunications liberalisés par les câblo-opérateurs", IDATE, 1994, and additional analysis * No cable TV networks available Table 2 Minimum Capacity requirements (approxima ...[+++]te) for services Speech: 64 kilo-bits/second ISDN: 140 kilo-bits/second Standard quality moving images: 2 mega-bits/second Enhanced quality moving images: 10 mega-bits/second Table 3 Technical limits on network infrastructure to the home i. Twisted Copper pairs: used by TOs to connect end users to the local switch: up to 257 kilo-bits/second: reliable service to all customers on local network the greater the capacity requirement above 257 mega-bits the greater the trade-offs of increased error rates, lack of reliability and limits on the distance which the end user can be from a central switch.