Hasta la Vista…EU “Super-Regulator”
Posted by Ron van Valkengoed
European telecoms ministers have rejected European Commission proposals to harmonize oversight of communication networks across Europe under a commission-controlled “super-regulator” that would have been able to overrule national decisions. The current position is to give the current European Regulators Group (ERG) a new name, but to keep its current loose co-ordination role that is able to take decisions by qualified majority.
Looking at the discussion and decision-making around the EU Regulator is like watching Sergio Leone’s movie The Good, The Bad and The Ugly……my take on why it is not happening is the following:
National interests continue to prevail in the EU:
- Nordic countries have a considerable industry interest in mobile device/infra (read: Ericsson/Nokia); ess margin at the operator level will bring down their ability to subsidize handsets and allocate CapEx expenditures for infrastructure…;
- Southern European countries are top receivers of roaming income…
- Large European countries have dominant pan European operators and less interest in taking margin out of the industry, and this margin funds their acquisition spree in India, Eastern Europe and Latin America.
- The Netherlands – and some other countries – invested heavily in creating a leading edge ICT infrastructure compared to other EU countries, they are not interested in having EU interference with their national policies……
Is there a need?
- Market inefficiencies because of lack of competition? The GSM Association (Operators) have valid reason to question this argument, the Ezwim Telecom Monitor also showed little evidence that regulation improved price competition.
- Roaming & one common market argument, yes it would be very nice to pay the same at home or when being abroad. The ratio between retail pricing and true cost is in the 5-10x range, one could make an argue for more regulation;
- Billing Unitisation…..paying by the second as compared to rounding up to a minute. Yes one could regulate this item as an average call is 2.5 minutes and rounding up is pure margin to the operator, when taking into consideration a starting tarrif of let’s say 80 Eurocents this make the price per minute very high……and much higher then the regulated minute price. The question becomes how far do you want to go….and what counter measures do operators take (paying for voicemail, higher starting tariffs,…);
- Lack of Transparency…..also called Bill Shock…I have seen a monthly bill of 50.000 Euro on mobile data, as the person who got this bill thought it is was ok to use Skype and listen to Music Stations by using a mobile data card while being in roaming. Should one put a max. cap on certain spending or make tariffs more transparent? I consider myself as a an expert user and even for me it is not transparent (tariff structures, conditions, …) at all……any improvement in this area is a bonus.
- Spectrum Allocation / Next Generation Networks…
Taking the above into account….yes there is a need, but I suspect this situation will not change for years to come and EU citizens and enterprises will continue to pay too much for telecommunications services.
Tags: European Commission, European Telecom Regulation, Telecom
