LONDON -- Access to mobile communications won’t bridge the digital divide in developing economies, several participants said Monday at the Chatham House/International Institute of Communications conference. Operators such as Vodafone invest in African networks up and get them running - - but then return to Europe to finance newly emerging technologies, leaving Africans with only basic services, Cagney Casimire, deputy chairman of the Telecommunications Authority of Trinidad and Tobago, said in an interview. Vodafone, however, said “dramatic” evidence shows the benefits to developing nations of mobile access.
The European Commission (EC) isn’t weighing broadband price controls despite a news report to that effect, a spokesman for Information Society and Media Commission Viviane Reding said Friday. In an Oct. 15 report, the EC said that some EU members lead the world in broadband access but the best and worst performers are on either side of a growing gap that it will address in coming recommendations to the e-communications regulatory framework. The IDG News Service reported that Reding is eyeing price regulation such as was imposed earlier this year on international mobile roaming rates. In terms of intervention by Reding, her spokesman was quoted as saying that while prices figure strongly in broadband access, price caps should “be a last resort only.” The quote was incomplete, the spokesman told us. The “full answer was ‘No,'” he said. Prices play a key role but price regulation should be a “last resort only in a market economy,” he said. The EC believes that the best way to cut broadband prices is competition, the spokesman said. Reding said lack of competition and regulatory weaknesses are slowing broadband growth and that “Europe must act now to get its broadband house in order.” Proposals for doing so will be part of the regulatory package unveiled November 13, Reding added. Those proposals relate to use of spectrum freed by digital switchover to boost wireless broadband, her spokesman said.
“General unease” surrounds the workings of the European Network and Information Security Agency, experts told the European Commission this week. Their report, commissioned by the Information Society & Media directorate-general after the agency’s first full year of activity, said ENISA does what it’s supposed to, but isn’t living up to its mandate to be Europe’s “voice and main networking node for the security environment.” The report faulted ENISA for lacking success indicators, focussing more on deliverables than on results affecting its key goals, and short-changing communication. Lack of investment in its image and brand recognition have kept the agency too low profile, the report said. Its Web site and newsletter are informative but aimed at traditional communication outlets, with no effort to develop virtual communities or peer-to-peer approaches, analysts said. The agency aims to help Europeans reduce network and information security threats and harmonize security policies and controls, the report said. Most interested parties say it hasn’t had much effect but they expect more the next two years, it said. The operational staff is too small to be effective, and the agency’s location on Crete is “undeniably remote” for a body requiring continuous interaction with main information technology security and policy research centers, the report said. The location is a “fundamental weakness” of ENISA that limits its use as a networking and knowledge- exchange node, and hampers personnel recruitment and retention, it said. ENISA’s considerable weaknesses are balanced by several strengths, the report said. The staff is competent, the agency has made a good start in building relationships, and there is consensus that ENISA should be a well-established single European voice for security problems. But, panelists said, if ENISA’s effectiveness isn’t improved, it quickly will lose its reputation, see staff turnover, and create misperceptions of its roles and goals by external parties. The report recommended creating a task force to develop a strategy for the next three years and marketing its activities better to boost its visibility. It suggested a satellite office in Brussels or another hub. The panel also recommended extending ENISA’s existence past its 2009 end date, reforming the regulation creating to reflect its strategic role, hiring more staff, and improving its control structure.
EU telecommunications ministers reaffirmed their support for global satellite navigation system Galileo and said they would decide before year-end how to pay for it. In September, the European Commission (EC) recommended that construction and deployment costs of 2.4 billion euros ($3.4 billion) be financed entirely from public money set aside for farm subsidies, with business picking up the tab for rolling out services later (CD Sept 20 p12). Transport Commissioner Jacques Barrot acknowledged the proposal would be a hard sell, and it’s reportedly sparking strong opposition from the U.K., the Netherlands and Germany. In a communique after a meeting Tuesday, Transport, Telecommunications and Energy Council members said Galileo remains a key project for the EU. The statement also said another priority is continuing implementation of the European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service, an existing three-satellite network. Ministers noted that the EC’s funding proposal and reconfirmed their intent to make an “integrated” decision on a European Global Navigation Satellite System before the end of the year. Discussions by the Council show that the EC’s work on Galileo has a way to go before approval, said a spokesman for the U.K. Department for Transport.
The fate of the broadcast treaty is unclear after a vote Friday by the General Assembly of the World Intellectual Property Organization. Delegates endorsed a Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights recommendation to leave the topic of broadcast and cablecast organizations on the committee’s agenda but also to consider convening a diplomatic conference only after “agreement on objectives, specific scope and object of protection has been achieved.” The committee has been discussing updating broadcasters’ rights for digital technologies since 1998, WIPO said. Last year, the General Assembly approved convening a diplomatic conference -- if negotiators could agree on a signal-based approach. The committee met twice in special session but discussions stalled at the June meeting, when members couldn’t agree on core issues (CD June 25 p6). The “specter of the broadcasting zombie hasn’t been dealt a death blow,” but member nations disagreed enough to block a diplomatic conference, said Thiru Balasubramaniam, Geneva representative of public interest group Knowledge Ecology International. Balasubramaniam agreed with Pakistan’s delegate, who said that perhaps “broadcasting needs a time-out.” Broadcasters’ need for international protection of enhanced signals remains critical, said NAB Senior Associate General Counsel Benjamin Ivins. Broadcasters are grateful that the General Assembly kept the matter on its agenda, he said. The decision on the treaty is subject to formal approval in an Oct. 3 General Assembly report, WIPO said.
Growing health concerns over Wi-Fi have led the EU’s environmental watchdog, the German government and local authorities in the U.K. to urge curbs on its use. But the European Commission and Britain’s Health Protection Agency say there’s no proof Wi-Fi is a problem.
Germany’s telecom industry would have to put 50 million to 75 million euros a year into new storage systems under a data retention measure that Parliament is weighing, the German Competitive Carriers Association told the lower house, the Bundestag, last week. Holding phone and Internet traffic data on 82 million Germans also will cost dearly, attorney Axel Spies said on the group’s behalf. If lawmakers don’t allow providers’ costs to be reimbursed they face “shipwreck” at the Federal Constitutional Court, Spies said. Cost is only one of several complaints that the association has about the bill. Providers want to help catch terrorists, Spies said, but they fear it may not be constitutional to store all traffic data on all citizens on the chance that someone has committed or threatened to commit a serious crime. The Bundestag wants providers to comply with the retention rules by January, but they can’t do it that quickly, Spies said, warning that stored traffic data are to be used only to prosecute crimes listed in the EU directive. Interpreting the law to include the pursuit of unauthorized music downloaders in civil and criminal courts would further strain carriers and ISPs, he said.
Construction and launch of global satellite navigation system Galileo would be funded entirely with public money, under a plan unveiled Wednesday by the European Commission. Collapse of industry talks on deploying and operating the embattled program forced changes in financing, Transport Commissioner Jacques Barrot said. He acknowledged that national finance ministers will be a tough sell.
The European Commission aims to deregulate 10 electronic communications markets and boost its enforcement power over remaining markets, according to draft recommendations and other documents obtained by Communications Daily. Other proposals include creation of an independent body to advise the EC on competition decisions, stronger national regulatory authorities (NRAs), and a revamp of EU spectrum management rules.
European telecommunications industry groups continue to spar over whether regulation benefits broadband competition, as the date nears for European Commission proposals for changing the regulatory framework. Enforced local loop unbundling has raised EU broadband penetration to U.S. levels, the European Competitive Telecommunications Association (ECTA) said this month (CD Sept 5 p8). By contrast, a study for the European Telecommunications Network Operators’ Association concluded Friday that “intense access regulation” such as unbundling hampers competition by slowing investment in new and alternative networks.