Gigabit Infrastructure Act

1. Introduction

There is an interesting development under way in Europe. On 12 February the last part of European Regulation 2024/1309 came into force. The aim of the regulation is to lower the cost of rolling out high-speed internet connections. It is known as the Gigabit Infrastructure Act (GIA). The GIA imposes a number of measures on the member states of the European Union, and each of them has to translate those into national legislation. In this article we pay particular attention to article 10?The article of European regulation 2024/1309 that makes the fibre in an apartment building the property of the building. of the regulation. Article 10 deals with new construction and renovation of multi-dwelling buildings, or apartment blocks.

The reason for that extra attention is both simple and complicated. The simple reason: this regulation supports an idea we have held at Integrio for a long time, about how to provide social housing in apartment blocks with internet in a smarter way.

The complicated reason: as always with European regulations of this kind, every member state is obliged to convert the text into national law. And that always involves a measure of interpretation. In our view, what is now on the table as proposals for amending Dutch legislation does not do justice to the intention of article 10 of the regulation. We would like to put that up for discussion.

We will do that by looking at as many angles as we can. We begin, therefore, with a piece of history: how the communication networks in the Netherlands came about. After that we go deeper into the European regulation itself. We look at how the implementation of a European regulation normally proceeds, and we assess the proposals for amending Dutch law and regulations. We also look at the impact of the regulation through the eyes of all the stakeholders. What changes for them according to the letter of the regulation, and therefore not of the law.

Finally we describe how we see the consequences of the regulation for new construction and renovation of apartment blocks in the Netherlands.

We hope this sketches a picture of how it could also be done. And in our view: how it could be done better.

If you still have questions after reading this, we would be glad to talk.

2. A bit of history

Is internet a utility? Ask Google that question today and you get back a neat, AI-generated answer.

“Yes, internet is increasingly seen as a utility, just like water, electricity and gas. Although it is not officially a “utility” in the strict legal sense, it is more and more regarded as an essential service, crucial for taking part in society and the economy.”

Now, I fully agree with the part about an essential service, but with the rest of the wording I have my reservations, just as Google AI does. As my history teacher used to say, you understand the present better if you know the past. For that reason we will dive into the history of the networks in the Netherlands for a moment.

The networks in the Netherlands

The telephone network

If you wanted to build telephony infrastructure in 1880, the period in which the first telephone connections in the Netherlands were made, you already had to apply for a licence from the State. Part of that licence was a pre-emptive right to take over the infrastructure the licence had been issued for. That right gave the government an option to buy the network at some point in the future. So the networks were not in government hands to begin with. In 1897, on the basis of that pre-emptive right, the State took over the trunk telephone network of the first Dutch telephone company, the NBTM, and in 1913 the State began taking over the local telephone networks. The government service that issued the licences was turned in 1915 into the State Company for Posts and Telegraphy, which in turn was renamed in 1928 to the State Company for Posts, Telegraphy and Telephony, the PTT.

All the locally built networks except those of Rotterdam, Amsterdam and The Hague were by then already owned by the State. The last three had proved too expensive for the State to take over. In 1940 those last three were added by the German occupier as well, after which the Germans immediately made the PTT independent. That independence was reversed right after the war, but the takeover of the last three independent local networks never was. For the first time the entire telephone network in the Netherlands was in the hands of the State. Under the old Dutch Telecommunications Act it remained possible for the State to grant a concession to a third party to build a telephone and telegraph network, but no such concession was ever granted again after 1945. In practice the PTT therefore held the exclusive right from then on, but with it came the obligation to lay telephone cables to every home in the Netherlands. When the PTT was privatised in 1989, that stayed the same. The obligation to build was kept in place for a while longer, but KPN was no longer a state company.

The coax network

With the coaxial cable network you can see a great many parallels. These networks were also built locally at first, only this began much later. From 1970 onwards you could apply for an authorisation to build and operate a communal aerial system (a gai, a television network intended for a small group of homes) or to build and operate a central aerial system (a cai, a television network intended for neighbourhoods, towns or whole municipalities). In principle a gai could not be larger than 100 connections, and after crossing a road the signal could no longer be amplified. A cai was limited to the municipal boundary. During the 1970s and 1980s one or more cable networks were built in almost every municipality, but only one authorisation per service area was granted, to a housing association, a municipality or a company. Gradually the cable networks came to be operated by municipal services, often because housing associations transferred their gai's to municipalities. Halfway through the 1990s most municipalities in turn sold the television networks to private cable companies. The networks needed substantial investment and the municipalities simply did not have the means. Those investments also turned the network from a broadcast infrastructure into a full infrastructure on which two-way communication became possible. And so a second network came into being in every home over which internet access was possible. And this one too was in the hands of private market parties.

Within a period of ten years the government had completely lost control over the communication networks. The free market took over, and only the appearance of a utility remained.

Dutch regulation

But how can internet still be called a utility? No party has an obligation to lay a communication cable to every home in the Netherlands, and the network owners have been private companies with a profit motive for years.

Companies that build networks therefore do not behave like a utility supplier at all. The only reason we mention internet in the same breath as electricity and water when we talk about utilities, is that we see internet as a crucial service. But really internet is better compared with food and drink. Crucial, certainly, but a basic need that people arrange for themselves.

We saw this in the Netherlands too, of course, and that is why, from the time of the privatisation of the PTT, the moment the government transferred ownership of the copper network that then ran to every house in the Netherlands, the government set requirements for the way the networks could be used. The beginning of regulation.

With the introduction of fibre from 2005 onwards, a good alternative to the old copper network appeared in more and more places. Fibre was built first of all by newcomers. In Nuenen a cooperative was set up that connected the majority of the houses in the municipality to fibre. One of the lenders was the holding company of Reggeborgh, which also owns the contractor Volker Wessels. In 2008 Reggefiber was founded, a joint venture of Reggeborgh and KPN. The building of fibre to homes accelerated sharply as a result. Logically, at a certain point the government decided to drop the obligation to lay a copper cable to every home.

Since that moment no party at all has been obliged to provide every house with any kind of network cable. We leave that to the market. And logically the profit motive of market parties means that parties are happy to bring fibre inside where that is relatively cheap, but would rather skip the more expensive places. In cheap areas this sometimes even leads to two fibres from different network owners being brought to one home, while in more expensive areas nothing is built at all. Sometimes residents in the more expensive areas are asked to contribute a one-off amount themselves to make the work affordable. Only once a cable has finally been brought inside a house does a healthy form of competition arise on that cable, with different providers. This does not apply to the Ziggo cable, of course, because Ziggo allows no competition on its network. But on the fibre cable in the house it does. And between the providers on fibre and Ziggo as well, naturally. One provider wants to be the cheapest, another the most complete, and yet another the most fun, the one everybody wants to belong to.

Those competing providers on fibre do have one thing in common, though: they rent the network cable from the party that managed to get inside the home with its cable. And in the Netherlands that network owner is in virtually every case a commercial market party. A party that tries to maximise profit. And that is the basis of what we are calling a utility here. “An essential service or infrastructure needed for a home or household to function.”

European involvement

You might think the above would be a good reason for Europe to get involved. After all, this is no way to create a level playing field. There is market competition in the Netherlands, but really only at the level of services. At network level there is in fact a monopoly. Parties in the Netherlands that dare to enter the highly competitive internet provider market are at the mercy of the network owners. The party that managed to be the first to build fibre in a street, a neighbourhood or a city can exploit that connection as it sees fit. And they do so in different ways. Ziggo, for instance, chooses to allow no competition on the network at all. Parties such as Delta do allow competitors, but those have to rent a lit fibre. New entrants find the rent for that lit fibre high, certainly when they compare it with Delta's own house brand. Then there is KPN: in the older areas it is possible to rent unlit fibres from the local exchange to the home, but KPN rarely enters into such contracts any more. And in new areas the local exchanges are built in such a way that it is no longer possible to place your own active equipment.

As I wrote earlier, reason enough for Europe to step into these multiple monopolies, as I like to call them. And yet that is not the reason the high-speed networks were looked at at European level. Because, quite honestly, things are not that bad in the Netherlands. A high percentage of residents and businesses already have access to these networks. No, the reason has really been that there are European member states where access to high-speed internet is far less self-evident. And yet networks will be built in those countries too.

The aim of the European regulation is to lower the cost of rolling out these high-speed internet connections, and it is known as the Gigabit Infrastructure Act (GIA). The GIA imposes a number of measures on the member states of the European Union which have to be translated into national legislation.

3. The European Gigabit Infrastructure Regulation

How it came about

In Europe, digitalisation rose high on the agenda during the coronavirus pandemic. At a time when everyone was working from home overnight, our dependence on digital infrastructure and technology became clear in one go. In September 2020, President Von der Leyen announced in her State of the Union that Europe has to secure its digital sovereignty, and as a result the policy programme for the digital decade up to 2030 was adopted in December 2022. Four goals were set in that period, each of which had to be worked out into programmes: 1. A digitally skilled population and highly qualified digital professionals 2. Secure, well-performing and sustainable digital infrastructure 3. Digital transformation of businesses 4. Digitalisation of public services

The second goal, secure, well-performing and sustainable digital infrastructure, has been worked out in the Gigabit Infrastructure Act. A regulation that should help give every European household access to a gigabit network, and give every populated area access to next-generation wireless high-speed networks with performance at least equivalent to 5G. To achieve that, policy is needed to speed up the rollout of fixed and wireless networks with very high capacity across the whole Union, to make it easier and to make it cheaper.

The main parts of the GIA

The regulation as a whole runs to more than 60 pages and, alongside a good deal of stating the obvious, offers interesting new insights. That is only logical, because with a regulation like this we are trying to harmonise the laws and rules of every European member state. The regulation sets new standards for access to existing physical infrastructure (article 3), which amounts to rules on mandatory wholesale access of the kind that used to be regulated in the Netherlands as well. Article 4 is about transparency on physical infrastructure. Which infrastructure is where? Something that in the Netherlands is largely arranged in the WIBON, the act on the exchange of information about above-ground and underground networks. Terms such as the Kadaster, the Dutch land registry, and KLIC, its excavation notification service, come up quickly when this is discussed. The regulation lays down that there has to be a single information point per member state where this data can easily be consulted. There also has to be more cooperation on civil works, which is what article 5 covers. Article 6 then states that there has to be a single information point where information about planned civil works is available. In this way more can be done together, which should lower the cost of building. Article 7 is about harmonising permit procedures and rights of way for building very high capacity networks across the country. It has to be simple to apply for permits, and it has to be clear how long a permit procedure may take. Article 8 describes what has to happen if no timely decision on a permit application is made, and article 9 sets out a number of exceptions. Article 10 describes what a building permit has to comply with for all new buildings and buildings undergoing major renovation. We come back to that at length in the next chapter. Article 11 is also about in-building infrastructure, but then about the fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms under which that has to take place. Article 12 deals with making the single information points available digitally, and articles 13, 14 and 15 with dispute resolution, competent authorities and sanctions.

Article 10: multi-dwelling buildings

As mentioned earlier, article 10 of the regulation is about new construction and renovation of multi-dwelling buildings. Article 10 states that from 12 February 2026 every application for a building permit for new construction or major renovation of apartment blocks or multi-dwelling buildings has to be assessed against new rules. Those rules require such residential complexes to be fitted with in-building infrastructure, in-building fibre cabling, a network termination point in every dwelling, and a central room where a connection to the public network can be made. The regulation calls that an access point.

That was not the case before. Ducts were laid during construction for data networks, but then KPN and Ziggo, for instance, would sit at the table during the utilities consultation and claim those ducts for themselves. Sometimes even with a free right of superficies for an indefinite period. If a complex consisted of 100 apartments, they would pull 100 fibres inside from their nearest local exchange and terminate them in each apartment. Any competitor wanting to supply internet to a resident in that complex could only do so by renting the cable running from the local exchange to the apartment from KPN. On top of that they were themselves responsible for the connection from the KPN local exchange to the data centre from which they delivered their services.

The new rules change this playing field drastically. The in-building infrastructure, the in-building fibre cabling, the termination point and the access point that now have to be built are all realised during construction, and once the building is finished they can therefore remain the property of the owner of the complex. Comparable with the intercom system, the lift and the corridors to the apartments. And when we talk about the owner of the complex, that can just as well be the housing association or the owners' association.

Every telecom provider that wants to deliver services can then bring its own fibre to the apartment block, from which one apartment or all of them can be served, depending on what the residents want. The telecom provider no longer has to pay rent to KPN for that. The owner of the complex will charge little or no rent for the in-building fibre, because it would simply be passed straight on into the residents' subscription anyway. The result is that the connection can become some 25 euros a month cheaper for the residents.

What member states must do

The European Union has several legal instruments at its disposal. It can issue opinions, take decisions, or adopt regulations. Opinions are not binding, and decisions are binding but only on those to whom they are addressed. Only European regulations are of general application, binding in their entirety and directly applicable in every country of the European Union. For a European regulation this means it is directly binding and has direct effect. Even if the regulation has not yet been fully implemented in national laws and rules. So in the Netherlands too.

4. Implementation of the GIA in the Netherlands

How legislation comes about

What normally happens when a European regulation comes into force? Not much different, really, from other kinds of legislation. The biggest difference can be that a European regulation sometimes sets deadlines for when the national legislation has to be ready. But the process itself is always the same and consists of five phases.

• Initiative and preparation: a minister (or sometimes a member of the Tweede Kamer, the House of Representatives) takes the initiative for a new bill. Civil servants draft the text of the law and where necessary consult interested parties.
• Advice from the Raad van State: the bill is submitted for advice to the Raad van State, the Dutch Council of State. This advisory body checks whether the proposal holds up legally and whether it conflicts with higher legislation.
• Consideration by the Tweede Kamer: the bill is submitted to the House of Representatives. A specialised committee considers the proposal, after which a plenary debate follows. The House can amend the proposal, or adopt or reject it.
• Consideration by the Eerste Kamer: after approval by the House of Representatives the proposal goes to the Eerste Kamer, the Senate. The senators assess the proposal above all on quality, workability and constitutionality. The Senate can only adopt or reject the proposal, not amend it.
• Ratification and publication: once both chambers agree, the King and the responsible minister sign the law. The law is then published in the Staatsblad, the official law gazette, and subsequently comes into force.

Although European Regulation 2024/1309, the Gigabit Infrastructure Act, was signed by both the European Parliament and the Council as long ago as 29 April 2024, the legislation in the Netherlands has, at the time of writing, got no further than step 2.

That means a draft text of the law has been written and the market has been asked for input. In this case that was done through internet consultations. There have been two internet consultations for the implementation of the GIA:

• https://www.internetconsultatie.nl/gigabitinfrastructuurverordening/b1 (in Dutch)
• https://www.internetconsultatie.nl/uitvoeringswetgia/b1 (in Dutch)

The first is about the amendment of the Besluit bouwwerken leefomgeving, the Dutch buildings decree. Mostly about article 10.

The second is about the amendment of the Telecommunications Act.

We are mainly concerned with the first. It is now with the Raad van State, so phase 2. Even so it is interesting to look at what happened in phase 1, because a draft text of the law was submitted there.

Choices in the implementation

Somewhere in a small room, probably in The Hague, someone took the European regulation and made a first attempt at amending Dutch law and rules so that they line up with the regulation. That first attempt will have been adjusted and improved several times afterwards, but from that first try onwards we could say: a start has been made.

Something stands out, though, when you read the draft regulation of the Minister of Housing and Spatial Planning amending the Omgevingsregeling, the Dutch environment regulation, in connection with the technical specifications referred to in article 10, paragraph 4, of the gigabit infrastructure regulation.

Let us first look again at the essence of article 10 of the regulation. In essence it is fairly simple. Every apartment block that is newly built or renovated has to be fitted with:

• fibre-ready physical in-building infrastructure
• in-building fibre cabling
• a termination point in the dwelling
• an access point at the bottom of the complex

According to article 2, point 11, of the regulation the definition of the access point is as follows:

“access point” means a physical point, located inside or outside the building, accessible to undertakings providing or authorised to provide public electronic communications networks, where connection to the fibre-ready in-building physical infrastructure is made available;

In other words, an entry point where you as an internet provider can bring a network connection inside, into a room where you can connect (patch) the individual apartments in which people live who want to take services from you.

For this we also look briefly at a number of the recitals of the regulation. In recital 49 we read:

…In order to ensure that more than one undertaking is able to serve end-users and thus strengthen competition, access points of new multi-dwelling buildings and multi-dwelling buildings subject to major renovation works should be easily accessible for more than one operator without disproportionate efforts.

The intention of the regulation is clear from this. Several providers have to be able to gain access, with the result that there is more competition. We also read in recital 53:

…Once the network is connected up to the access point, new customers can be connected at considerably lower costs, in particular through access to a fibre-ready vertical segment inside the building, where it already exists. That objective is also achieved where the building itself is already equipped with a gigabit network to which access is provided under transparent, proportionate and non-discriminatory conditions to any provider of a public communications network with an active subscriber in the building.

The intention here is clear as well. Because not every provider has to lay its own cables to every apartment (the vertical segment), it has to be possible to connect customers at considerably lower cost. It is worth reminding ourselves now and then that these rules are there for every member state. And in every member state the situation before implementation is different. In the Netherlands it was always common practice that at the utilities consultation for new construction two network parties would join in, often Ziggo and KPN. During the construction of the new complex empty ducts were then always laid to every apartment, the vertical segment, and made available to those parties free of charge. If, in our example, a provider other than KPN or Ziggo wanted to offer services, there were two options:

• That party pulls its own new fibres to every apartment, a new vertical segment. Problems: no space available at the bottom of the building, and expensive to make those connections. Inefficient too, because a fibre is already going up.
• That party rents the fibre from KPN or Ziggo. We all know Ziggo does not allow that, but with KPN we do not get away with it either. KPN does not only rent out the fibre to the apartment: for new construction it rents out only the fibre from the nearest local exchange. And where KPN has its own room at the bottom of the complex with equipment in it, you can rent that fibre only as a lit fibre.

The above makes clear that the current way of working does not line up with the regulation. That means Dutch law and rules do indeed need amending in order to enforce a new way of working.

When we then look at the translation of article 10 into Dutch rules, a number of intentions from the recitals appear not to have been carried over into the amendment of the Omgevingsregeling. The amendments appear to do no justice at all to the requirement that more than one undertaking is able to serve end-users. The explanatory memorandum literally contains the following text:

… Incidentally, the regulation does not stand in the way of the in-building fibre cable and the network termination point being installed by the provider that intends to offer an electronic communications network and/or services to the residents of the apartments.

So what this says, in effect, is that the KPNs and Ziggos of this world can simply carry on in the old way. Technically that position can be defended, but then the following things do have to be arranged:

• The access point has to remain accessible to other providers.
• Space has to remain available at the access point for authorised telecom companies to place their own equipment.
• The fibre running to the apartment where another provider wants to deliver has to be able to be connected to the equipment of the provider that wants to supply its services.
• The cost of renting the fibre in the vertical segment has to be substantially lower than the rent for a normal fibre to a terraced house, in order to achieve recital 53 of the regulation.

Missing parts in the legislation

At this moment these conditions do not appear to be secured in the new Dutch laws and rules. In our view the regulation is therefore not being met. The consequence is that in every new apartment block there is still a mini-monopoly. Ziggo will not rent out, KPN only on nationally applicable terms.

A missed opportunity that could have come to light during the internet consultation. In that case it could also have been repaired in the bill.

Interesting, for example, is the response from Kences dated 9 December 2025 (in Dutch). It also shows that the text of the law does not hold together conceptually. Kences writes:

If we were obliged to let the student choose from more than one provider, the internal infrastructure would become far more complex and therefore more vulnerable.

This shows that Kences is afraid of being obliged to let several parties connect in-building fibre, while the situation of student housing is in fact a very good example of where the new regulation can work well. If Kences provides the in-building fibre cabling in the student complexes, it is not obliged to let other parties lay a vertical segment as well. It is only obliged to provide, for other parties, firstly an access point and secondly non-discriminatory access to the in-building fibre cabling.

What happens next

So there is still work to do here. It will be interesting to see whether further changes follow in the laws and rules before they are implemented, or whether it becomes a matter of waiting for the first objection procedure on a new build.

The Raad van State has since come back on the bill, but they have not found the gaps, let alone repaired them. In fact, in the response of 5 March 2026 we read next to nothing about article 10. The status of the amendment of the legislation can be found here: https://wetgevingskalender.overheid.nl/Regeling/WGK026893 (in Dutch).

Of course, legislation that falls short does not mean there will be no building in the new way. The developers of apartment blocks still to be built are free to make different choices in how they set things up. And that will be able to prevent a good many objections. The first housing associations are already approaching us to take this on together. And we are glad to do so.

5. Impact on the stakeholders in the process

In this chapter we go through the impact for the stakeholders in this process one by one. In doing so we work from the interpretation of the regulation itself, and not from the currently proposed version of the Dutch rules.

Municipalities

For municipalities the impact of article 10 of the GIA lies above all in the fact that permit applications for new construction, and in some cases renovation, of apartment blocks have to be assessed against the new rules. That has applied since 12 February 2026. Even so, our experience is that many municipalities are still only barely aware of the new rules. That is partly because the Dutch legislation is not yet ready, but in fact that need not be a limitation, because European regulations, as described earlier, take precedence over national legislation. In essence, what the permit application has to be assessed against is simple:

• Is the multi-dwelling building fitted with fibre-ready physical in-building infrastructure?
• Is the multi-dwelling building fitted with in-building fibre cabling?
• Are all the apartments in the complex fitted with a physical termination point?
• Is the multi-dwelling building fitted with an access point that all service providers can connect to?

The absence of the national laws and rules does make that assessment difficult, though. Because the standards and technical specifications that are referred to do not exist yet, and going by the first drafts of the amended laws and rules they do not look likely to arrive either.

So where does that leave municipalities? There appear to be two possible approaches the permits department can take.

• Assess against the old standard. The question then is how long it will take before the first objection is lodged. After all, if someone objects on the basis of the European regulation, they will ultimately be proved right, but how much delay will that cause for housing construction? And is that not precisely one of the big problems the new government wants to tackle? An undesirable situation, then. It is a matter of gambling on how large the chance of objection procedures becomes.
• Assess against the regulation. But that is a challenge too, because without a standard and specifications it is the individual official's own interpretation that decides whether approval follows or not. That interpretation may differ in every municipality, and even between individual assessing officials. Not desirable either, of course.

It is clear that this comes down to a choice between two evils, and time will tell which one is chosen. At least until the national laws and rules have been amended.

Housing associations

The GIA can have consequences for housing associations as well. As explained earlier, every new apartment block has to have an access point that different service providers can connect to. There are any number of angles from which this can have an impact for housing associations. I will highlight two of them here.

Cheaper internet for residents

Where the housing association builds the termination point, the fibres and the entry point itself during construction, in line with the regulation, it can also approach service providers itself to open up the apartment block. The service provider can then dig its own fibre to the building and does not have to pay rent for the use of the fibres to each apartment. That can save the residents 20 to 30 euros a month.

The housing association can even choose to settle the internet connection for residents through the service charges. Every resident then gets the high-speed internet connection as standard and chooses, for instance, their own streaming services or fixed telephony service from a provider of their choice. Those services then run over the internet connection. We also call these OTT, or over the top, services. In this way internet access can also be arranged centrally in communal or hard to reach spaces, such as the basement or a shared roof terrace.

An additional role as manager of the fibre network

In the situation where the housing association builds the termination point, the fibres and the entry point itself during construction, it is of course also the owner of that infrastructure. This means the housing association also takes on a new role as the party responsible for managing and giving access to that infrastructure. So something will have to be arranged for repair work in the event of damage, for example. You can compare that with repairing the lift in an apartment block when it stops working. There are plenty of companies in the market that already supply this kind of management and maintenance contract today. Our advice: as a housing association, choose a local company for contracts like these. #supportYourLocals

Owners' associations

For owners' associations much the same applies as for housing associations. They too, once they become the owner of the infrastructure, can make arrangements with service providers. Perhaps managing agents can play a role here, so that not every owners' association has to make its own arrangements. It would be good if this could be coordinated per municipality as well.

The new way of connecting can also solve another problem. Today it regularly happens that owners' associations withhold permission for fibre to be connected. Fear of hassle, it works fine as it is, I do not need it myself: all reasons that can contribute to that. If the infrastructure stays with the owners' association, the resistance to allowing the work may become smaller. The question of who is then willing to pay for the work of course remains. In new construction it can be added at a relatively low cost per apartment, but with renovation, or perhaps even as a standalone project, it is harder to finance.

Property developers

Something changes for property developers too. When designing the apartment block, an entry point has to be taken into account, along with a place where all the fibres from the apartments are terminated. In telco language we also call that a meet-me room. An installer will also have to be brought in to pull the fibres through the in-building duct network and terminate them in the apartment and in the meet-me room. That room has to be accessible around the clock for the manager of the infrastructure. All things that have to be taken into account during the development of a new apartment block.

Civil-law notaries

Did you know that in the past a right of superficies was sometimes established on the duct network in an apartment block, before telecom providers pulled fibres through it to each individual apartment? The consequence of the GIA is that after 12 February 2026 such a right may never be established again. So something changes for civil-law notaries as a result of the GIA as well.

The question then is what happens to the rights of superficies that already exist. The European regulation does set out what the rights of market parties are in the absence of available fibre-ready physical in-building infrastructure. It is a matter of waiting for the first time a provider invokes those rights, because the regulation gives no clarity yet on how this is to be resolved.

6. Our view on article 10 in multi-dwelling buildings

Enough theory: where do we go from here? How can we make full use of the European regulation and the thinking behind it?

How this is going to work

Our view on article 10 is not very complicated. In-building infrastructure always remains the property of the owner of the building. So that can be a housing association or another landlord, but also an owners' association.

The building owner decides for itself which service provider it lets in. That can be the established order, such as KPN, Ziggo, Delta or ODF, but it can just as well be a small local player. And of course it can be several players.

From a network point of view the demarcation point of the building owner is:

• on the dwelling side, the FTU the owner has had installed, and
• at the access point at the bottom of the building, the patch panel on which all the fibres are terminated

In the room where that patch panel is mounted there is space for several service providers to place equipment and supply it with power. The meet-me room.

Service providers arrange the connection from their own network to the meet-me room themselves.

The building owner is responsible for sound procedures around patching in the meet-me room.

Network owner, active operator and provider

Three things are needed to deliver internet: a physical network, a party that lights that network, and a party that delivers services over it. Sometimes that is one party, often it is three.

With article 10 only the first layer changes. The passive network becomes part of the building; the active operator?The party that lights the fibre with its own equipment in the distribution point. Service providers deliver over that connection. and the provider stay what they are. What Integrio does is make sure the records of that first layer stay in order: which fibre is used by whom, and when.

Backhaul: one connection for the whole building

An active operator delivering in the building needs a connection from the distribution point to its own data centre. That is called the backhaul?The connection from the building to the active operator's data centre. One fibre, shared by every dwelling that gets internet through that operator.. That single fibre serves every dwelling that gets internet through that operator, whether there are seventy of them or two hundred. Its cost is therefore spread across all the connections, and that is why internet in a building with its own network can be cheaper.

Installation inside the building

The largest and most disruptive part of installing the in-building infrastructure in a multi-dwelling building is laying the network of empty ducts in the vertical segment. That work already takes place today at the expense and risk of the building owner.

So it is only a small step to realise the last part as well. That consists of three components:

• placing a Fibre Termination Unit (FTU) in the meter cupboard of every apartment;
• placing a patch panel in the meet-me room;
• pulling fibre through the empty ducts and terminating it at both ends.

Once that is done, the building would hold the fibre-ready certificate, if such a thing ever arrives. The building is ready for the service providers, without them having to be present in the vertical segment at all.

Integrio helps housing associations and property developers to realise this infrastructure. In doing so we use knowledge from practice, given the absence of set standards and technical specifications, to prevent the wrong choices being made. We can also arrange the complete realisation for you: we direct the parties that do the work, at a price per dwelling agreed in advance. For more information, contact us at gia@integrio.nl.

Network Independent Patch Administration (NOPA)

Once the network is in place, procedures have to be agreed about patching in the meet-me room. It is important there to record which service provider uses which fibre. That way rent can be charged if required, but slamming can also be prevented. With slamming, customers are switched from one service provider to another without their consent.

By using the Network Independent Patch Administration (NOPA?Network Independent Patch Administration. Records per dwelling which provider is connected and which patch belongs to it.) from Integrio, a building owner prevents that. All service providers connect to the Integrio NOPA API as soon as they have permission to deliver services in a particular building. Using the API they can submit information requests and patch and depatch orders to Integrio.

Information requests give the status of the fibre or fibres of apartments (in use, reserved, available, available shortly). With that information, patch requests can be submitted. Where a depatch request is running, that information can be included in the information request.

Once a patch request has been accepted in NOPA, Integrio makes sure the party hired by the building owner to make the patch receives that order in time and can confirm it after carrying it out. That way it is clear to everyone how the fibres are being used.

Want to know more about what a patch administration can and cannot do? Contact us at gia@integrio.nl.

Management and maintenance

Just like the lift in an apartment building, the passive part of the gigabit infrastructure will have to be maintained by the owner. Not necessarily very complicated, but important all the same. This covers things like repair work on the FTU or the patch panel if they have been damaged, or even repairing the fibre when a resident drills through it.

Here too Integrio can help. We can either arrange the management and maintenance for you through a management and maintenance contract, under which we start repair work within one working day or even sooner. We can also take claims handling off your hands for the cases where the damage has to be recovered. And of course we are also the point of contact for the service providers when they run into problems with the in-building infrastructure.

All to take the work off your hands and to keep the impact for you as the owner to a minimum.

Want to know more about management and maintenance of a fibre network? Contact us at gia@integrio.nl.

Integrio as a catalyst

At Integrio we think the Gigabit Infrastructure Act is a good development. That is why, over the coming years, we want to do everything we can to make the new way of building networks to the new standard a success.

We believe local service providers can come to play an important role in this. In Lelystad a service provider from Lelystad, in Almere one from Almere and in Hengelo one from Hengelo. But not all local parties can immediately fill every gap that appears once work starts to be done in line with the GIA. That is why we have developed the new GIA portfolio. It consists of:

• Help with installing the in-building infrastructure
• Help with the patch administration
• Help with management and maintenance

Support during installation NOPA, with management and maintenance

We work for housing associations and owners' associations, but also for the service providers. Every model is possible and can be implemented in many variants. A first conversation with one of our GIA experts is of course also an option.

But the goal is always the same: smarter and cheaper internet in apartment blocks. That is what we stand for. And that is why we see ourselves as a catalyst for the GIA.

7. Summary

In this piece we try to provide clarity on article 10 of the Gigabit Infrastructure Act. A European regulation that, if it is implemented properly, has the potential to contribute to smarter and cheaper internet in apartment blocks.

The GIA helps prevent mini-monopolies of internet providers in multi-dwelling buildings. We think that is a good development. At Integrio there are people with more than 25 years of experience in the consumer telecom market. There was a time when only the PTT existed and telephony was a genuine utility. We have seen the market liberalise and the regulator show its best side. We have seen fibre networks being built, with the result of yet another new status quo that the regulator did not know what to do with either. The consequence: today there is little real competition. The market is set by parties with deep pockets that try to be the first to build fibre somewhere, so that they create a small monopoly in that area.

That staking out of territory is something we can break open with the GIA under our arm. In the new situation the in-building fibre infrastructure belongs to the housing association or the owners' association. Every service provider may deliver its services, but the owner remains in charge in its own building.

Building owners can opt for local service providers and, during the admission talks, can set requirements about the rates the residents will pay. Arrangements can also be made about wifi in communal areas, for example.

There are also situations today in which smaller network providers, rather than the large parties, offer the network in multi-dwelling buildings at their own expense and risk. That situation already has a number of advantages over the old one, because requirements can be set about the amounts residents have to pay each month, for instance. Even so, that situation is not desirable. We run the risk that if such a small network provider grows too large, it gets taken over by the big players. And then we are back where we started. That is why it is important that the in-building fibre infrastructure really stays with the building owner. They decide what happens with the infrastructure, and nobody else.

It is an ambitious plan, but it is backed by the European Union. The missing building blocks to realise this plan are ones we fill in from Integrio where needed. In this way we remove every barrier to delivering internet in multi-dwelling buildings in line with the GIA. For as long as it takes until the new way is the standard. And once more Integrios have come into being, our mission is accomplished.

Naturally we also keep a close eye on our national government. These pages will therefore be updated with new information from time to time.

Would you like to talk to our experts, or to the authors of our GIA pages? Then contact us at gia@integrio.nl

Lelystad, 5 March 2026