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International Internet Magazine. Baltic States news & analytics Friday, 29.03.2024, 10:58

Proposed Electronic Communications Code: reforming European telecoms

Eugene Eteris, RSU/BC, Riga, 20.10.2017.Print version
The EU’s telecoms markets are subject to changes: the member states need more coordination, legal certainty, clear regulations, investments and incentives. The proposed Code aims to achieve sufficiently long minimum duration for spectrum assignments for 5G across Europe. The EU special agency, the Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications (BEREC) based in Riga, is an important actor to ensure consistency.

Political decisions in the next few months will shape the EU’s telecoms markets for many years to come in order to produce the best outcome for consumers and businesses. The EU aims at deploying world-leading optical fibre and 5G networks across 28 states by 2025, an objective that EU leaders endorsed at the Tallinn Digital Summit this fall. High-speed networks are a precondition for European global competitiveness. Investment and new digital infrastructure will play a vital role in the perspective Digital Single Market.

 

To be among the front-runners for 5G, the EU states need coordination in the EU’s spectrum policies better. It is essential to catch up with leaders, e.g. the US, South Korea and Japan.

With a lot of support for 5G development and more coordinated spectrum policies, there isn’t “much combined willingness to implement them into legally binding rules”, said Commission Vice-President A. Ansip at the European Regulators for Electronic Communications’ forum (Brussels, 18 October 2017). The 5G networks can no longer be addressed only at a national level; the 21st century demands a pan-European context.

 

In order to meet the EU’s 5G target, the member states need investment: about €500 billion will be needed to build infrastructures capable of sustaining high-speed networks. To start with, investors need stable rules that support their risk-taking. Hence, the Commission is going to provide the right regulatory conditions for competitive investments.

 

As soon as competition drives investment (these two things go together), the latter need security. Presently, the regulatory environment has been based on the principle that obligations are imposed on operators with significant market power. This principle is flexible - but it is also predictable and robust. It has provided legal certainty over the years, which is essential.

However, that certainty would be compromised if obligations become widely applicable irrespective of the providers’ market power - as the Council now proposes. In this sense, such things as ambition for competitive investments, incentives and the right balance are important.

 

As to stability and predictability, the EU needs to make the 5G vision a reality and make spectrum available throughout the Digital Single Market: “it must be consistent, coordinated, and with conditions that favour the major investments needed for adequate coverage across Europe”, argued Commission vice-president. The proposed Code aims to achieve sufficiently long minimum duration for spectrum assignments across Europe. The entire cycle of spectrum management has to be addressed urgently: assignment, licenses’ duration and renewal.

When it comes to coordinating approaches to licensing, the EU special agency -the Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications (BEREC) based in Riga - has an important role to play in ensuring consistency by regularly assessing conditions for assigning spectrum.

 

For spectrum assignment and all other cross-border tasks, the EU needs modern forward-looking institutions to make sure that European new telecoms rules work efficiently and are implemented properly around all EU countries. The process goes through independent national regulators with sufficient responsibilities to deal with their own markets. Hence, the need to have consistent regulatory decisions across the EU: for the sake of connectivity, 5G and spectrum. Therefore, BEREC shall be significantly reformed in order to create a stronger regulator on an EU level, an agency to reconcile the interests of pan-European coordination with local flexibility.

 

As to the consumer aspect: there must be a high level of consumer protection in order to have trust in the marketplace. For that, Europe needs common rules, contrary to the present situation where the degree of protection depends on the type of communication service without consumers even being aware of it. The same level of consumer protection and rules in communication services should be aligned in the EU.

 

The Digital Single Market should be completed in 2018; it will make the EU stronger and more competitive as people and businesses, society and economy will gain. Hence, the Digital Single Market will turn into reality, making European existing physical single market into a digital one.

 

More information: in the Proposal for a new European Electronic Communications Code.

Source: http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_SPEECH-17-4043_en.htm  






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