| The proposed reforms of the Telecom Package 03/09/07 |
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On August 28th, 2007 several newspapers published articles about the new direction of the revision of the Telecom Package.
The changes of the Telecom Package might have various radical implications for the product and service markets within electronic communication. Many of the suggestions are based on the Impact Assessment (COM(2006) 334 final) that suggests different policies to create a single eCommunication market. One option that could ease this process would be to create the suggested regulatory body; European Electronic Communications Market Authority (EECMA). A European-wide regulatory is controversial on many levels. It would replace the European Regulatory Group (ERG), a European Commission (EC) consultant that consists of the 27 National Regulatory Authorities (NRA) which takes unanimous decisions. The new EECMA would be represented by the 27 heads of the NRAs, and decisions would be taken by a simple majority. Its task would be to deliver technical opinions to the EC, on its own initiative or when requested. The budget will probably amount to € 12 millions for the first year and the year after € 22 millions. Member States that are hostile to more Community power might make it difficult for the EC to introduce these ideas. Information Society and Media Commissioner, Viviane Reding has earlier said that the Commission will consider the introduction of “functional separation” as a possible remedy for competition problems. Functional separation refers to the “making a separate business of the incumbent’s division responsible for the sale of access to the infrastructure to which the non-discrimination obligation relates, and applying to this new business unit a certain number of operational rules to create a Chinese wall between it and the other services offered by the incumbent operator”. The unbundlement of network activities and services activities would easier open up the market for new operators and is discussed as a new Directive. The EC has identified spectrum management to be fragmented and inefficient. Therefore the EC has expressed a desire to make more flexible use of spectrum, reduce obstacles to spectrum access and use a market-based approach for different frequencies. One of the EECMA’s responsibilities could be to help optimising the use of spectrum, by providing information about the frequency status in the Member States. This could take the shape of a public register, where the Member states themselves also would help to submit up-to-date information. Even though the EC is pushing for flexibility of spectrum use, it has said that it wants to reserve spectrum for Mobile TV. The new policy of spectrum management is unclear, but will be changed according to the marked-based principles. In the Recommendation (2003/311/EC), 18 markets are identified that are in need of ex ante regulation, and are divided into retail and wholesale. Only when consumer harm is absent and complete competition exists a market can remain free from regulation. Development in the different markets has led the EC to intend to reduce the number to 12 in the first place and then 8 instead of 18 markets – see Draft Recommendation (SEC(2006)837). In the Draft Recommendation only one of the identified markets is a retail market. It is likely that in the revised Telecom Package the EC will decide to exclude some of the wholesale markets as well. Supposedly market 10 (transit services in fixed telephony networks), 14 (segments of wholesale leased lines), 17 (the national for international roaming on public mobile networks) and 18 (broadcasting transmission services) will be excluded. The new Telecom Package should consist of 1 Regulation and 2 Directives. Next steps:
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