Operators and EU still arguing the toss over wholesale roaming
When it was first announced, we thought operators wouldn’t be happy that customers won’t have to pay roaming fees soon. Turns out that was pretty much spot on.
When it was first announced, we thought operators wouldn’t be happy that customers won’t have to pay roaming fees soon. Turns out that was pretty much spot on.
Yesterday wasn’t a good day for EU President Jean-Claude Juncker. After his State of the Union address, in which he promised Europe would actually do something at some point, the internet couldn’t help but take the piss.
World travellers are to get a mobile phone service that could end their bill shock and multiple SIM card management problems.
The outlook for Europe’s telecoms service industry has gone from negative to stable, says Moody’s Investors Service in a report published today. However the EU regulation of mergers could threaten the recovery, it warns.
The EU and China have signed an agreement to co-operate over the development of 5G network technologies and standards.
The European super-bureaucracy is adopting an increasingly antagonistic stance towards the continent’s telecoms players, suggesting an opposition to consolidation and once more failing to offer clarity on roaming.
Following confirmation form both Hutchison Whampoa and Telefónica the two indeed are in official talks over the sale of Telefónica’s O2 to 3’s owner Hutchison, industry analysts have been quick to offer their views on how this proposed bid would affect the UK mobile market if approved. It seems it is a thorny issue.
The European Commission (EC) has announced a public consultation on the future use of the ultra-high frequency (UHF) 700MHz spectrum band. It is currently mostly used by the broadcasting sector in much of Europe, but it is increasingly sought after by telecoms providers for wireless broadband.
European Commission (EC) VP Andrus Ansip has said creating a digital single market across the 28 EU member states will benefit Europe by €260 billion a year, “potentially more”, as he put it. He claimed it is vital, and crucially depends on forming a telecoms single market first as a basis.
Neelie Kroes, the outgoing Digital Agenda VP at the European Commission (EC), has urged the telecoms industry and EU member states to end digital divide. Speaking at the Broadband World Forum in Amsterdam, Kroes claimed Europe is still split between “the digital haves and the analogue have-nots.”
It has been reported the EU is close to reaching an agreement with China to end a dispute between the trade partners over alleged illegal government subsidies to Chinese telecoms manufacturers.
EU telecoms regulators reportedly want to rid the industry of price caps on fixed calls in an attempt to open up and boost the European sector, which is considered weak compared to the US and Asian markets.
European lawmakers have called for a common charger to be used for all mobile handsets sold in the EU. MEPs said that such that introducing a universal charger would reduce waste, cost and hassle for users. A draft outlining the legislation has been informally agreed with the EU’s Council of Ministers.
A coalition of 14 European mobile operators has warned of the damaging effects that the European Commission’s plans regarding the abolition of roaming charges could have on competition in the region.
The director general of the GSMA, Anne Bouverot, has sent an open letter to EC Commissioner Neelie Kroes calling for policy reform that will encourage investment in Europe’s telecoms sector. Bouverot secured endorsements from the CEOs of ten European operators with a combined European mobile customer base of almost three quarters of a billion subscriptions, according to data from Informa’s World Cellular Investors service.
UK Prime Minister David Cameron has pledged to work with Germany on research and development on the Internet of Things (IoT), 5G technology and the EU as a single digital market. Cameron made the pledge as he joined German Chancellor Angela Merkel in opening the CeBIT 2014 trade fair in Hanover, Germany.
The European Commission has published research that suggests Europe’s mobile operators are missing out on business from 300 million customers by charging roaming premiums within the EU. The research forms part of the EC’s continuing drive to end EU roaming charges.
Telecoms trade body the GSMA has warned that government efforts to share spectrum usage should “complement but in no way replace” the need for exclusive access spectrum when provisioning mobile broadband services. The body issued a report that assesses two potential licensed shared access scenarios; the first being the release of 50MHz in the 2.3GHz band from 2020 in the EU and the second regarding the release of 100MHz in the 3.5GHz band from 2016 in the US.
Further restrictions on European roaming charges are now likely to be introduced in September or October, rather than July as originally planned. In its initial proposals to reform the EU telecoms market, the European Commission intended to ban incoming call charges for roaming citizens within the region by July 1st 2014.
European Commissioner for the Digital Agenda, Neelie Kroes, this week outlined her intentions to transform education across the EU using information and communications technology (ICT). Kroes, along with the Commissioner for Education, Culture, Multilingualism, Sport, Media and Youth, Androulla Vassiliou, plan to unveil new proposals to reform education in Europe next week.
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