With debate still raging on plans to overhaul EU e- communication...

attorney Axel Spies said Wednesday. Germany is pursuing a “dangerous double strategy” that will hurt the country’s reputation as a place to do business, Spies said on behalf of the VATM, which represents competitive carriers. On the national level, the government stressed it won’t change the regulatory framework to promote the fiber rollout and endorsed alternative broadband solutions, he said. At the European level, it’s pushing for regulatory oversight on those new markets to be lifted, as part of the telecom package, to unilaterally favor DT, he said. Easing or lifting rules for wholesale products in new markets will throw next-generation network cooperation and access models currently under negotiation between the incumbent and its rivals into jeopardy, he said. If talks fail and oversight is lifted, DT won’t fear any regulatory sanction and would have no incentive to resolve issues by negotiation, Spies said. Moreover, giving DT a regulatory holiday will “pull the carpet” from under competitors’ business plans because investment in new networks needs planning security and a stable regulatory environment to succeed, he said. The European Commission’s position on oversight is very clear, said a spokesman for Information Society and Media Commission Viviane Reding. In the EU single market, fair competition, enforced by the EC and national authorities, should ensure that all companies in the market can generate a fair return on investment in a competitive environment, he said. The ongoing negotiations are still in the hands of the European Parliament and Council of Ministers, “where constructive efforts are made on all sides to come to an agreement under the leadership of the Czech Presidency,” he said. Another “trialogue” between the three EU bodies took place Wednesday, with another, possibly final one, scheduled for March 24, a council spokeswoman said. The main issues are still management of radio spectrum, how to achieve regulatory consistency across Europe, how to spur investment in next- generation networks, functional separation of dominant players’ networks and services arms as a potential competition condition, the role of regulatory authorities and the proposal for a new regulatory agency, she said. The EC “will continue to play a constructive role” in the talks to ensure the new framework sets the right balance between necessary rules and desirable investment in new networks, Reding’s spokesman said. Meanwhile, the European Consumers’ Group (BEUC) urged the institutions to keep the principle of net neutrality in the final text to ensure that consumers have access to an “open Internet.” ISPs in many countries block or slow user access to Web sites offering Internet phone services, the BEUC said. ISPs, telecommunications operators and content providers are “increasingly cooperating so that they are technically capable of limiting or prioritizing” access to content, applications or services, potentially giving consumers less choice and hampering innovation, it said. The BEUC published market research it said showed that only a minuscule percentage of consumers receive information about how their ISPs manage access to content, applications and services and many don’t know ISPs can block access to certain Web sites. Competition alone won’t be enough to regulate the market because only 7-15 percent of online consumers would be willing to shift to a more expensive ISP to gain access to the sites, it said.