Europe could lead the global shift to the mobile Internet if oper...

New business models for the mobile Internet require a fundamental shift to reduced prices and open-access data services, she said. Mobile Internet growth has been disappointing in Europe because data services cost too much, she said. Users want the mobile Web to be as easy to use and open as the fixed- line Internet, and operations must adjust mobile termination rates accordingly, she said. But lower interconnection charges won’t help if service providers don’t also slash inter-operator data roaming tariffs. “My clear preference is that the EU and national regulators will not have to intervene with regulatory measures on data roaming, as we had to on voice roaming,” she said. If by July 1 operators come up with a “credible Eurotariff” by July 1, the EC won’t intervene, Reding said. And policymakers must start freeing bandwidth needed for the mobile Internet, she said. The EC proposed repealing the GSM directive to allow “refarming” of 2G mobile spectrum for 3G use, but the European Parliament hasn’t acted on that proposal, she said. The most important potential boost to wireless bandwidth is the spectrum freed by the digital switch, Reding said, but only if Europe takes a coherent approach to its development and governments don’t wait until 2015 to make mobile allocations. Another issue mobile Internet services uptake is consumer trust, she said. The EU Safer Internet Program to protect children from online threats was expanded to cover mobile phones, but Reding prefers self-regulation to official oversight, she said. She praised Monday’s launch by the GSM Association of the Mobile Alliance Against Child Sexual Abuse. The effort aims to block from mobile networks those seeking to view or profit on child porn, the GSMA said. Conventional Internet connections usually are used for access to content of this kind, but there’s a danger of broadband networks being rolled out by mobile operators being used, too, said the organization. Alliance members will use technical means to bar access to websites identified by an appropriate agency as hosting child-sex content, GSMA said. They also will set up notice and take-down procedures for removing such content on their own services, endorsing creation of hotlines at which people can report finding such material online or on mobile content services, GSMA said. Alliance members other than the association are Hutchison 3G Europe, mobilkom austria, Orange FT Group, Telecom Italia, Telefonica/O2, Telenor Group, TeliaSonera, T-Mobile Group, Vodafone Group and dotMobi.