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Does coordination in the telecom sector lead to anticompetitive practices? A recent article by RegBlog, a blog on regulation out of the University of Pennsylvania, suggests that it most cases coordination does not hurt competition.

That’s because coordination is often necessary in the case of infrastructure rollouts, where the physical infrastructure and new technologies often can be too costly if not spread among several operators, and coordination only is harmful if there is not enough competition in the segment—something telecoms certainly don’t face with rivals from over-the-top offerings, IT firms, cable operators and others.

“When partners and access-seekers can obtain full control over the infrastructure, co-investments are likely to lead to more timely and intense competition,” suggested the blog.

For example, noted the blog, operators will sometimes share the cost of digging or deploying passive infrastructure but will lay their own fiber lines, which allows them to engage in full, facility-based competition.

“In these cases, there is no risk of coordination, as networks based on multiple fiber lines ensure that access seekers can obtain full control over them,” it noted. “Under such conditions, co-investment agreements are more likely to lead to timelier and more intense competition on the downstream market.”

In the telecoms space there is the threat of operators potentially dividing up territory, of course, with each operator investing in different areas. In these cases, there is the potential to distort market forces and hurt competition.

But in practice this isn’t often the case. With such a competitive market, anti-competitive agreements are very unlikely to happen in the telecom sector unless all the major operators are in on the agreement.

“Consumers would change to other operators offering better conditions, so the agreement would not pass on harmful effects to consumers,” noted the blog. “On the other hand, most competition concerns would be solved if cooperating firms committed to giving access to competitors on a non-discriminatory basis.”

So should we worry about collusion in the telecoms market? Not so much.