To the outsider the European Union is a fairyland where competitors are not allowed to play ‘too’ hard, and where everything is regulated to such an extent that there is little room to innovate in business. From the inside it is a corrupt wasteland of cronyism and cynicism, with local companies fighting for an unfair advantage in any of the 27 countries that make up the EU.
All of which is the rationale for a new set of EU telecoms rules, approved this week by the European Parliament ‘ ostensibly it is about strengthening the rights of phone and internet users, by boosting competition between telecom operators and it was passed with almost no resistance, once the respective interest groups had carved out the worst excesses of its original wording.
But already there are creaks and groans being heard from civil liberties groups, and the UK already has drafted ISP ‘three strikes’ legislation which promises to bypass the principles that underlie the new rules.
The new legislation will support the idea that no citizen can have his or her internet access taken away from them until their cases are heard, with a burden of proof being on proving piracy or other abuse, on the accuser not the accused. Most legislation drafted in Europe, by pro-content lobbies, has tried to either suggest that after a third abuse is identified, ISPs will immediately cut off the alleged perpetrator, or that someone in government has ‘special’ powers to fast-track a decision to do so. The EU ruling makes it clear that that this power should only reside with a court. Chances are that this principle will be tested in short order.
Other issues at stake are the harmonization of radio spectrum management across the EU, especially so that after an analog TV switch off in 2012, the harvested spectrum can be sold off on a regional or European wide basis, and at least it can be put to the same use.
The big one for the EU to bring about change is the way Telecom regulators will be able to force what the EU calls ‘functional separation,’ something that has been talked about for years, where access networks and core infrastructure are shown to operate separately from one another, and from actual customer oriented business units, so that rivals can also use whatever level of infrastructure service they wish to.
The big consumer rights issues are all about curbing the arrogance of cellular operators and internet portals by enforcing mobile number portability, in just a single working day and by strengthening personal privacy protection, in internet usage. That last piece of wording is all about the Google’s of this world building up a profile of a consumer whether it’s done by collating their searches or by placing cookies into their browsers, to keep track of what they might buy in future. If and when that data is either leaked or made available to a third party for payment, it invariable is the focus of outraged citizens feeling the hand of big brother upon them. The EU wants that never to happen here.
The EU telecom reform package consists of five separate EU Directives. the Framework Directive, the Access Directive, the Authorization Directive, the Universal Service Directive and the e-Privacy Directive, and also a new regulation which will allow for setting up a single European Body of Telecoms Regulators which will be able to control and co-ordinate the separate regulators (BEREC).
This final step to set up a Super-regulator first saw the light of day in November 2007 and really came about as Viviane Reding fought to control European cellular roaming charges.
The mandate to investigate the creation of a single regulator came from the European Parliament back in 1997 but the Commission has only now felt it was ready to follow it up.
The super regulator should have a special role coordinating subjects which have European wide implications such as Voice over IP, mobile termination charges and roaming charges ‘ where the differences in approach from different regulators has often prevented competition being the same in each part of the EU.
The establishment of BEREC will take place next Spring and will involve the appointment of someone almost twice as powerful as the US FCC chairman (500 million people versus 300 million), in terms of reach and spend, while the remainder of the legislation must find its way, more or less unchanged onto the statute books of the 27 EU countries by June of 2011.