EU Calls For Creating Single European Telecom Regulator
BRUSSELS -(Dow Jones)- A single European telecom regulator should replace the existing system of 25 separate national regulators, European telecom commissioner Viviane Reding said Thursday.
"For me it is clear that the most effective and least bureaucratic way to achieve a real level playing field for telecom operators across the EU would be to replace the present game of "ping pong" between national regulators and the European Commission by an independent European telecom authority that would work together with national regulators in a system similar to the European System of Central Banks," Reding said.
Under such a system, Reding said national regulators would continue to analyze their domestic markets, much like national central banks continue to function. But the central European regulator's word would be final, much like the European Central Bank in Frankfurt sets interest rates for the entire single currency zone.
The commissioner was speaking to a conference of upstart telecom companies represented by the European Competitive Telecommunications Association.
Reding, the European Union's little-known telecommunications regulator from Luxembourg, is fast emerging as the bete noire of Europe's big phone companies.
She has big providers fuming over new EU rules that would force them to give smaller telecom and Internet rivals represented by the Competitive Telecommunications Association access to their high-speed broadband networks.
Reding sees her fight as a way of reining in national governments trying to protect their national telephone companies.
She has consistently complained that giants such as Deutsche Telekom and France Telecom control 80% of European broadband connections. She compared that with the USA, where, she said, telephone companies account for only 38% of broadband subscribers, with cable operators offering strong competition.
Reding faces a particular problem with Germany. The German government has moved ahead with a new telecommunications bill that allows Deutsche Telekom to keep rivals off its multi-billion euro broadband network.
The telephone companies insist that this tough regulation stifles investment. The US industry invested EUR34.5 billion in broadband in 2004, compared with EUR32.5 billion in the EU, with 100 million more people, according to the network operators' association.
In her speech Thursday, Reding rejected these claims. "A few incumbents have been very critical of the current regulatory environment which, they claim, is discouraging "high risk" investment in new technologies and services," she said.
"I have stressed it a number of times and will repeat it today that in our experience supported by facts, competition drives investment. The EU rules do therefore deliberately not provide for 'regulatory holidays', precisely in order to prevent a re-monopolization of markets."
Not all of Reding's plans will pain the large telecom operators. She said once again Thursday that she plans to lift all regulation on retail calls from fixed and mobile telephones, arguing that effective competition exists in these markets - something that has smaller phone companies crying foul.
All told, the commission wants to continue regulating 11 areas, down from 18.
In a related issue, Reding said a single European regulator could help rationalize management of the radio spectrum.
"We have to recognize the competitive disadvantage which the E.U. faces because, instead of having one single regime for spectrum management and spectrum licensing, as in the U.S., we have at least 25 different systems," Reding said. "I believe that we need to discuss the idea of a European spectrum agency or the integration of spectrum into the mandate of a possible future E.U. telecom authority."
-By William Echikson, Dow Jones Newswires; +32-2-741-1480; william.echikson@dowjones.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires"
Posted to the site on 16th November 2006