This week’s decision by France’s competition regulator to fine France Telecom (FT) 80 million ($94 million) more presages beefed up antitrust telecom sector enforcement, Winston Maxwell, a telecom attorney with Hogan & Hartson in Paris, said. On Tues., the Competition Council sanctioned FT for failing to let competitors enter the broadband DSL market in 1999-2002. The case arose in a 1999 Neuf Telecom complaint that FT was offering a broadband access product to ISPs but not giving other telcos access to its network in a way that let them offer competing products. In 2000, the council told FT to make such a product available. FT came up with a wholesale offer, ATM Connect ATM. However, it cost too much and had technical limits curbing competitors’ ability to build competing offers, Maxwell said. In 2002 French telecom regulator ART (now ARCEP) forced FT to lower its price. However, Maxwell said, the Competition Council felt FT ignored the substance of its 2000 order. In May 2004, it fined FT 20 million. The telco appealed. The appeals court doubled the fine, and this week the council, after reviewing the case, levied 80 million on top of that, saying FT’s behavior seriously hurt France’s economy. Specifically, the regulator said, FT practices: (1) Led to closure of the market for ADSL access, guaranteeing FT was the sole supplier. (2) Went on for 3 years despite Council injunctions and ART intervention. (3) Were carried out by a traditional vertically integrated operator that, due to its dominant position, bore a particular responsibility to the market. (4) Hampered an emerging market’s growth. The fine is significant, Maxwell said, because it shows the council’s “muscle” under the leadership of new Chmn. Bruno Lasserre. Lasserre, head of France’s telecom ministry in the early 1990s, was the “key architect of liberalization” of the telecom sector. The ruling is “a good example of ARCEP and the Competition Council working together in their respective roles,” Maxwell said. ARCEP has the power to force FT to modify wholesale offers, and the council has authority to sanction the telco’s anticompetitive behavior. FT called the ruling disproportionate, saying it will appeal. It cited mitigating factors, including Neuf Telecom’s filing its complaint before ART defined conditions for opening the market; that the ATM Connect ATM product was regulated and monitored as of 2001; and that the wholesale product FT sold to ISPs was instrumental in developing the broadband market in France, which “has become the leading European country both in terms of number of ADSL lines and number of unbundled lines.”
European justice ministers and the European Parliament (EP) are tangling over mandatory retention of communications data, European Digital Rights (EDRI) reported Thurs. On Nov. 14, 2 parliamentary panels will tackle amendments to a draft framework decision backed by the U.K. Presidency and the Justice & Home Affairs (JHA) Council. The Presidency is pushing for approval by its Jan. 1 term end, but the sides appear as far apart as ever. Still, the U.K. Home Office is optimistic of agreement by then, a spokesman said.
The U.K. Office of Communications (Ofcom) is “muddying the waters” of the U.K. telecom market by proposing to ease regulation on some British Telecom (BT) retail products and services before ensuring that rivals have adequate access to underlying wholesale offerings, the U.K. Competitive Telecom Assn. (UKCTA) said Fri. With 3 consultations underway or recently closed that will have a “fundamental impact” on competitors and consumers, Ofcom is sending alternative telcos confusing signals, said UKCTA Dir.-External Relations Christine Roberts in an interview. BT, however, disagreed that the issues should be kept separate.
The global effort to set ultrawide broadband (UWB) standards is winding down but it’s unlikely to result in total harmonization, several key players said. The U.S. has completed its work, and Europe and Japan are expected to adopt standards by March. But lingering concerns over interference with other spectrum users -- and the lack of a unified standard -- could slow uptake, experts said.
As Deutsche Telekom (DT) prepares to spend billions on new optical fiber lines in Germany, competitors fear being squeezed out. A question that seems largely settled in the U.S. the extent to which and price at which incumbent telcos must give rivals access to local fiber loops -- is still unresolved in the European Union (EU). The murk has prompted one telecom expert to urge the European Commission (EC) to revisit the issue in next year’s major review of European e-communications laws.
The European Parliament (EP) wants to cooperate on the prickly issue of mandatary retention of Internet and telecom traffic data but resents pressure for a quick decision, some members said Mon. Admitting the EP has limited sway in the arena, EP Pres. Josep Borrell criticized the Council of the European Union for resisting continued calls to work more openly. Legislative bodies “can’t continue to work in the dark” on such an important matter, he said as the EP and national parliaments met jointly to improve their scrutiny of police and judicial antiterrorism and criminal activities.
Emotions ran “quite high” over mandatory retention of communications traffic data after a meeting last Thurs. between U.K. Home Secy. Charles Clarke -- who now heads the Presidency’s Justice & Home Affairs Council -- and European Parliament (EP) members, a parliament member told us. Clarke, who updated the EP panel on civil liberties, justice and home affairs (LIBE) on Council efforts at data retention, left many MEPs fuming over a seeming “take it or leave it” attitude on the Council’s part, the MEP said. But another said refusal to compromise could hurt Parliament’s credibility for years.
A recent report warning that pressure on European public service broadcasters (PSBs) is undermining TV’s role in supporting democracy touches on interesting issues but isn’t particularly useful to the European Commission’s (EC’s) efforts to update the TV Without Frontiers (TVWF) directive, said a spokesman for Information Society & Media Comr. Viviane Reding. Earlier this week, George Soros’s Open Society Initiative (OSI) published a study of the state of TV in 20 European countries, finding that commercialism is hurting PSBs (CD Oct 12 p7). Asked if the report could be used to buttress Reding’s arguments in support of revising the TVWF, the spokesman said many of the 20 countries it covers aren’t in the European Union (EU), and the bulk of the report deals with broadcast issues, while the thrust of the TVWF review is to convert the law to an audiovisual directive that takes into account convergence. Nonetheless, the report’s discussion of PSBs in neighboring countries to the EU, particularly the Balkans, provides the EC with more information on an area in which it’s already working with local PSBs seeking to shift from state-owned to independent broadcasting. The OSI report also analyzed media concentration in the 20 countries and recommended the EC establish an independent agency to monitor media markets. But Reding’s spokesman said the Commission already does that under the TVWF; media pluralism is one of several topics handled by a high-level “fundamental rights” committee. Setting up a new organization would require approval from EU member states who have made it clear that media pluralism is no business of the EC, the spokesman said. The OSI’s proposal isn’t realistic, he said; the best way to ensure pluralism is to beef up the TVWF. Meanwhile, Miklos Haraszti, Organization for Security & Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) representative on freedom of the media, said he agreed “very much” with the report, unsurprising since he wrote the foreword. He acknowledged, however, that some “evaluations of the findings might differ in some cases.” The OSCE Freedom of the Media is already taking action along the lines the OSI suggested, he said.
The European Commission (EC) took action Thurs. against several more slow-moving member states for either failing to review their telecom markets for competition problems as required by the new telecom regulatory framework (NRF), or bungling the transposition of the framework into national law. The move to push countries to complete work on the 18 market reviews comes in part because of the EC’s impending (2006) review of the 5 directives that make up the NRF, said Information Society & Media Comr. Viviane Reding. That regulators in 3 “old” EU states, Belgium, Greece and Luxembourg, haven’t even adopted the NRF into national law -- although it’s been in force for over 2 years there -- shows the EC has to be “really tough,” Reding’s spokesman told us.
European national justice ministers Wed. failed agree on requiring retention of Internet and telecom traffic data, instead raising the possibility they'd consider approving a compromise measure floated this week by the European Union (EU) Presidency. After meeting in Brussels, the EU Justice & Home Affairs (JHA) Council said the original framework decision will remain under consideration as an option some nations favor. But, it said, “a majority of delegations were also open to the idea of adopting a directive” if it contains the scope, retention period, costs and review provisions the Presidency suggested.