Without “substantial and radical changes,” mobile roaming reforms floated by EU lawmakers will be a huge failure, a representative for independent mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs) said Wednesday at a European People’s Party hearing in Brussels. The event, chaired by the author of the draft legislative response to European Commission plans to force down high data roaming costs, looked at proposed price caps and “structural measures” such as “decoupling” of domestic from roaming contracts and giving alternative providers access to networks in other EU countries at regulated wholesale tariffs. MVNOs fear the report’s recommended roaming prices are so low that independent virtual operators will be barred from competing, said Innocenzo Genna, speaking for Italian MVNO Poste Mobile and independents in general. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development warned that any solution to pricey roaming rates must consider smaller players.
Revamped data protection rules will make Europe an “international standard-setter” in the privacy arena, Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding said Wednesday. The reform package, which must be approved by the European Parliament and Council of Ministers, includes a regulation with general rules for data protection (DP) and a directive governing use of personal data in criminal investigations and prosecutions. It updates 1995 rules that aren’t “fit for the digital age,” Reding said. It requires explicit consent to use personal data and provides a “right to be forgotten” when consumers withdraw personal information from social networks and other sites, she said. Any company that wants to do business in Europe will have to comply, she said. In a related privacy move, Digital Agenda Commissioner Neelie Kroes continued her push Tuesday for a ‘Do-Not-Track’ industry standard.
Proposed new rules for cross-border payment of the EU value-added tax (VAT) emerged from the European Commission Friday. In December, the EC said it will apply a one-stop shop approach for VAT compliance across borders first to e-commerce, broadcasting and telecom services, beginning Jan. 1, 2015. Its new proposals (http://xrl.us/bmomza) cover aspects of the system such as scope, reporting obligations and records. The one-stop shop will let providers of such services declare and pay the tax in the EU member nation where they're established rather than where a particular customer resides, the EC said. The regime is currently limited to non-EU electronic services providers but is being extended to EU businesses and to broadcasting and telecom services, it said. The EC urged governments to agree to the proposal this year, saying a common approach is key to designing the information technology systems needed to exchange information among the 27 tax authorities by 2015.
The femtocell market will languish unless mobile operators start using the technology to win customers and not just close coverage gaps, said ABI Research Mobile Networks Practice Manager Aditya Kaul in a report published just before the holidays. Although the number of operator contracts is rising sharply, the number of femtocells being shipped is hardly keeping pace, he said. But Femto Forum Chair Simon Saunders told us this week that ABI’s findings amount to “damning with faint praise,” because the jump in contracts shows many providers are edging up into greater femtocell use.
European Commission plans to force down high data roaming prices won cautious support from some EU lawmakers, telecom industry members and a consumer group, at a Tuesday hearing before the European Parliament Industry, Research and Energy Committee. But others, including the EC’s own advisory panel, the Body of European Regulators of Electronic Communications (BEREC) providers, said the plan is too complex and lacks ambition, and that lackluster competition in the roaming market should be attacked by other means.
A protocol for standardizing rules for security interests in space assets such as satellites will go ahead despite industry concerns, International Institute for the Unification of Private Law (Unidroit) Deputy Secretary-General Martin Stanford told us Wednesday. Satellite operators, spacecraft manufacturers, launch service providers, insurance and financial companies and satellite and space-related associations said in a Dec. 9 letter to Stanford that the instrument is being foisted on them despite strong opposition. The current draft will introduce new and unneeded regulations for satellite financing and is inconsistent with market practices, more than 90 companies and trade groups said. Moreover, they said, it will deter potential investors and boost insurance premiums and transactional costs. But Unidroit intends to proceed because the protocol will benefit developing and emerging economies, Stanford told us.
"The EU needs to become not only Cloud-friendly, but Cloud-active to fully realise the benefits of Cloud computing,” a select industry group said in recommendations Wednesday to the European Commission. Four issues are critical to the technology’s success, it said: data privacy, governance and identity management; trust, security and certification; interoperability, data portability and reversibility; and innovation and uptake. The EC said the report signals a desire on industry’s part for a more coherent legal framework for cloud services. That lack of clarity was also highlighted by responses to an EC consultation on the cloud, it said in a Dec. 5 report.
EU governments should “encourage the principle of net neutrality” and ensure the open and neutral character of the Internet as their policy objective, the Transport, Telecommunications and Energy Council of Ministers said in conclusions adopted Tuesday. Officials also agreed generally on many aspects of a European Commission proposal to drive data and voice roaming charges down, but many details remain to be settled, they said. The council also finalized its position on a five-year spectrum policy.
Forcing ISPs to monitor all e-communications on their network to prevent digital piracy would seriously infringe their freedom to conduct their business and may also breach customers’ civil rights, the European Court of Justice said in a closely watched opinion November 24. National authorities and courts must strike a fair balance between protecting intellectual property rights and operators’ businesses, something the Belgian court order against ISP Scarlet failed to do, the court said. The decision will dramatically affect the national and European debate on online copyright infringement, said telecom/Internet independent advisor Innocenzo Genna.
Space technology such as GPS is increasingly important in people’s daily lives and the space industry is one of Europe’s “great success stories,” said Jacqueline Foster, vice president of the European Parliament Sky & Space Intergroup, Tuesday at a Brussels conference on EU space policy. Despite Europe’s financial woes, EU lawmakers support a “robust space program,” she said. Satellite-enabled communications can play a key role in delivering very high-speed broadband and other goals of the digital agenda, but the industry must be taken more seriously in policy decisions, a representative from the commercial sector said.