On December 11th, 2008, the European Regulators Group (ERG) held a plenary debriefing session following the 27th Plenary Session held in Budapest on December 4-5th, 2008.

The debriefing was based on Mr. Dániel Pataki’s, 2008 I/ERG Chairman, presentation and it went through the 2008/2009 achievements and gave a framework review of the Telecom Package. He emphasised on how they have successfully been an active advisory role on the EU telecommunications sector and how they have a decisive voice on key policy dossiers. Spectrum being one of the most important issues in telecommunications in the future the ERG has investigated the future interconnection regimes and has started cooperation with the Radio Spectrum Policy Group (RSPG). The ERG confirmed its commitment to greater regulatory consistency across the European telecoms market and announced the end of the Independent Regulators Group’s (IRG) institutionalisation with the result of more coherent and effective organisation.

In Budapest national regulators had welcomed the Council’s common position on the Telecom Package and underlined the importance of further competitive deployment on Next Generation Networks (NGN). On NGN access, the ERG shared the EC’s view that the long-term aim is to have a broadband connection reaching each European home. The ERG welcomed all policy initiatives by national and local government to simplify the authorisation regime in NGN and welcomed the plans to free additional spectrum for wireless broadband networks.

It was noted that I/ERG-Radio Spectrum Policy Group (RSPG) Cooperation is finalising its report on wireless broadband and it will be ready for the next meeting in Berlin on February 26-27th, 2009. Tariffs were said to be a huge problem when talking about wireless broadband and information could be improved with these issues. Also it was reminded that with NGN and wireless broadband we should not only look at regulators to solve the problems but there are also other options such as in the wireless services.

Notes:
- Mr. Dániel Pataki, President of the Hungarian Regulator NHH, will step down as ERG chairman at the end of the year to commit his time to the RSPG. Mr. Matthias Kurth of the German Regulator Authority for Industries: Telecommunications, Postal Services, Railways, Electricity (BnetzA) will become the I/ERG’s chairman in January 2009.

For more information, please consult their websites: http://erg.ec.europa.eu, http://www.irg.eu and http://rspg.groups.eu.int

To access the press release on the Budapest Plenary Debriefing, please click here.

To access the statement on the development of NGN access, please click here.

To access the presentation from Mr. Pataki, please click here. 

To access the statement on achievement in 2008, please click here.

To access the Communications Committee’s (COCOM) working document on broadband access in the EU, please click here.