EU Vows Consistent Regulation of Mobile Termination Fees

BRUSSELS -(Dow Jones)- European Union Telecommunications Commissioner Viviane Reding Tuesday vowed to push national telecoms regulators towards a common pan-E.U. method of regulating and calculating mobile termination rates in early 2008.

Her comments, made at a joint press conference with two top officials from Italian telecom regulator AGCOM, follow some national regulators' efforts to force down the wholesale rates mobile phone network operators charge to connect calls from other networks.

"The work is underway on how to treat these mobile and fixed termination rates in a consistent way" across the E.U., Reding said, adding that this "does not mean in an equal way - there are different markets."

Some national regulators, such as France's Arcep and Italy's AGCOM, have called for a more harmonized approach to the oversee and even set such fees.

"In the first half of 2008, finding a common approach on mobile termination rates will be a priority for me," Reding said.

The talk of harmony comes as Reding prepares to propose her plan for a single pan-E.U. body to work closely with the commission and to help coordinate pan-E.U. regulation the 27-nation bloc's telecoms markets. The call will come as part of Reding's planned Nov. 13 proposal to overhaul E.U. telecommunications rules. Though Reding once pushed to replace the E.U.'s disparate national regulators with an E.U. version of the U.S. Federal Communication Commission - made up of only a few decision-making officials - she has since softened her vision so that the E.U.'s national regulators will likely become a sort of board of directors for the new body.

During her talk, Reding also lauded AGCOM's efforts to gain powers in Italy to force Telecom Italia SpA (TI) to spin off its fixed-line network into a separate subsidiary.

In November, as part of a proposal to reform European telecom rules, Reding is set to call to empower all national regulators with this function, as she says it will better enable the regulators to ensure that dominant players and network operators are granting their rivals nondiscriminatory access to their networks. Even ahead of Reding's proposal, AGCOM is pushing to be able to break up Telecom Italia.

Calling AGCOM "a truly European regulator," Reding said she was glad to hear of AGCOM's efforts.

-By Anne Jolis, Dow Jones Newswires; +32 2741 1488; anne.jolis@dowjones.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

Posted to the site on 16th October 2007