The European Parliament seems ready to approve a plan to jump-start the Galileo satellite radio navigation system. Lawmakers vote Wednesday on a compromise negotiated with the European Commission and Council of Ministers. Judging from Tuesday’s debate, most strongly favor it. Enthusiasm for the project was tempered by acknowledgement that Galileo is years behind schedule for lack of a public-private partnership with Europe’s space industry.
Compromise language on a regulation establishing satellite navigation system Galileo is up for a vote Monday in the European Parliament, said an Industry Committee spokeswoman. The accord between panel members and transport ministers would set rules for deploying Galileo’s 30 satellites and network of up-link ground stations, she said. Earlier, legislators only consulted on Galileo decisions, but under the new Lisbon Treaty, MEPs will have co-decision- making powers as European space policy moves under European Community jurisdiction, she said. The agreement describes security requirements and procurement rules for deploying Galileo and the European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service. The European Commission (EC), Space Agency and Global Navigation Satellite System Authority will manage the deployment phase, but the agreement postpones until after 2013 a final decision on a public-private partnership for Galileo’s operation, the spokeswoman said. Also on Monday, the committee will decide whether to accept compromise amendments to a plan for selecting and authorizing mobile satellite services systems. Panel members adopted a stance in March but now are mulling changes informally negotiated with governments, the spokeswoman said. If the package clears the committee, the full parliament on May 11 and the Council of Ministers, it could take effect this summer, she said. The amendments weren’t available at our deadline.
STRASBOURG, France -- The European Conference of Postal and Telecommunications Administrations (CEPT) needs more political clout, its president said Wednesday at a CEPT conference on technology and regulation. With 27 countries in the EU -- and many others aligning their policies with the EU -- CEPT wants to be more than a technical body, said Anthony De Bono, citing the need for a larger presence at the ITU. CEPT’s Electronic Communications Committee brings together the radio and telecommunications regulatory authorities of the 48 member countries.
STRASBOURG, France -- EU lawmakers will unveil counter- proposals to the European Commission (EC) telecommunications regulatory reform package next week, French Socialist MEP Catherine Trautmann said Wednesday. Trautmann spoke at a Conference of Postal and Telecommunications Administration meeting on technology and regulation. The European Parliament Industry Committee is taking the lead in vetting many of the EC proposals, and Trautmann’s official report will reject the EC idea of an e-communications marketing authority in favor of a beefed-up European Regulators Group (ERG), with a different approach to spectrum management, she said in an interview.
Seamless pan-EU e-communications services (PECS) could boost Europe’s economy by more than $2 trillion the next 20 years, Indepen Consulting said. Its study for British Telecom, the International Telecommunications Users Group and the European Virtual Private Network Users Association that that telecom controls hobble efforts to boost productivity and competitiveness as a result of information and communication technology investment by blocking provision of pan-EU services to major business users, analysts said. Multinationals that want to centralize business processes can’t do so for lack of choice in suppliers meeting their requirements, and the PECS supply is fragmented, often costly, and subject to differing service and provisioning times, Indepen said. International mobile roaming costs, security, remote staff access, billing tools, customer support and mobilizing data applications are priorities for multinationals but suppliers don’t meet those needs. As a result, wholesale access components often cost substantially more than in a competitive market, the report said. And in some countries PECS providers can’t get some access components, or can get them only if they build out infrastructure. Moreover, Indepen said, incumbent operators often supply wholesale access components to PECS providers on terms worse than those offered their own retail arms. Access for PECS providers to competitively priced wholesale access services and their ability to offer seamless access to multiple sites would get multinationals cheaper, faster service, enabling them to react to global market conditions, the report said. Telecom liberalization talks tend to focus on sector-level shifts, not the economy at large, Indepen said. It’s important to debate how to encourage investment nationally in next-generation broadband networks, but debate must also address cross-border value chains, the report said. At an April 14 Competitiveness Council meeting, EU officials should be “acutely aware that the current telecoms regulatory regime is not supporting the international competitiveness of EU businesses,” British Telecom and the others said. Review of Europe’s e-communications regulatory framework must pay equal heed to the needs of multinational business customers, responsible for about 35 percent of EU gross domestic product, said Luis Alvarez, BT president for EMEA and Latin America.
Germany’s telecommunications regulator is authorized to set mobile call termination rates, the Federal Administrative Court in Leipzig ruled this week. BNetzA’s 2006 decision to regulate the charges preemptively sparked a challenge by Deutsche Telekom’s T-Mobile, Royal KPN’s E-Plus, Vodafone’s D2 and Telefonica’s O2, attorney Axel Spies said on behalf of the German Competitive Carriers Association. The decision provides legal clarity in the sector, but any rate BNetzA sets must reflect the different cost situation of each of the mobile operators, he said. The smaller operators, E-Plus and O2, entered the market later and have higher operating costs than the other two because of the different frequency blocks they received to run their networks, he said. In the long run, further rate reductions are possible if all operators receive their fair share of the available frequencies, he said. Mobile termination rates are dropping, but vary widely across EU countries, Information Society and Media Commissioner Viviane Reding said in March.
European broadcasters and mobile operators sparred Thursday over use of spectrum freed by the digital switch, a spokeswoman for the European Parliament Industry Committee said. If the European Commission (EC) assigns part of the upper frequency bands now used in broadcast to bidirectional telecom services, French-speaking Belgians will lose 40 percent of their broadcast capacity, RTBF Administrator- General Jean-Paul Philippot, of the European Broadcasting Union, told MEPs at a mini-hearing on the digital dividend. Tim Hewitt, WiMAX Forum director of regulatory and spectrum policy, said demand for spectrum for mobile broadband will be high. Simon Wilson, chairman of GSM Europe’s frequencies working group, backed the EC plan to give some released spectrum to GSM service providers, the spokeswoman said. French MEP Catherine Trautmann, who will write the panel’s official report on EC proposals to change the electronic communications regulatory framework, sees the situation as a “gold rush towards premium frequencies,” the spokeswoman said. Trautmann said the problem isn’t just about “golden frequencies but about the use of frequencies in general,” the spokeswoman said. Italian MEP Patrizia Toia, who’s drafting a parliamentary report on the digital switch, said the EU needs a strong policy to withstand competition from the U.S. and Japan, the spokeswoman said. Toia’s report is to get a committee vote in June, and plenary consideration in July, the spokeswoman said.
Germany must rethink parts of its telecommunications traffic data retention law, the Federal Constitutional Court ruled Wednesday. Providers will still have to store the data for six months. But law enforcement agencies will be able to access it only for very severe crimes, not to prosecute misdemeanors or copyright violations, attorney Axel Spies said on behalf of the German Competitive Carriers Association VATM. The court also ordered the government to report on the effect of the law by September, he said. A preliminary injunction will remain in effect for at least six months, giving lawmakers time to change the law, Spies said. Wednesday’s order didn’t deal with reimbursement of communications service providers’ costs, a measure that the VATM has been pushing for, he said.
Eight EU countries have higher broadband deployment rates than the U.S., the European Commission said Wednesday in its 13th progress report on the single telecommunications market. Labor productivity and rollout of broadband, mobile, 3G and data services are all up in an industry, now worth over $469 billion, that accounts for 2 percent of the EU’s gross domestic product, the EC said. Despite the “nice” success stories, however, there are still major roadblocks to a unified market, said Information Society & Media Commissioner Viviane Reding.
EU lawmakers approved draft rules on picking providers of mobile satellite services such as broadband Internet or mobile TV at the European level. Voting March 6, the Industry, Research and Energy Committee decided such systems should provide services in at least 60 percent of the total EU area and might be switched to disaster relief services in emergencies, a committee spokeswoman said. Some lawmakers wanted services to cover proportionally more area, fearing remote places might lag in deployment (CD March 3 p5). The panel adjusted the original European Commission (EC) proposal, the spokeswoman said. One amendment says no more than 15 MHz for earth-to-space and 15 MHz for space-to-earth can be assigned to one applicant; a second requires that the selection process consider whether a candidate system offers vital public health, safety and security services to EU citizens. The proposal is set tentatively for an April plenary vote, followed by negotiations with the EC and telecommunications ministers.