Negotiators are “approaching a break-through” on capping international mobile roaming rates but aren’t there yet, said Angelika Niebler, European Parliament (EP) Industry, Research & Energy Committee (ITRE) chmn. After 4 rounds of talks involving the EP, EC and Council, Niebler said Tues., lawmakers have done all they can to cut roaming prices for consumers and hope telecom ministers agree when they meet June 7. Austrian MEP Paul Rubig, who wrote the lead report on the EC proposals, said the compromise package includes: (1) Caps, for the first year of the 3-year regulation, of 49 eurocents a min. for roaming calls made and 24 eurocents for calls received, “a major concession to Council.” Year 2, rates drop to 46 and 22 eurocents, and at the end of that year to 43 and 19 eurocents. (2) A sunset clause, under which the regulation would end after 3 years - sooner, if after 18 months the EC decides it isn’t working. (3) Wholesale tariffs -- rates mobile operators charge one another to transmit calls on their networks -- applying within 2 months of the regulation’s effective date, of 30 eurocents a minute the first year, dropping to 28 and 26 the 2nd and 3rd years. (4) Clear pricing, with customers getting push text messages from operators detailing individualized per-minute tariffs as they cross EU borders, and a phone number where they can get information on other services. Once the rule takes effect, mobile operators will have a month to offer customers attractive deals. If buyers don’t respond, the automatic retail “Eurotariff” kicks in 2 months later; wholesale ceilings take effect 2 months after entry into force. But U.K. Christian Democrat MEP and ITRE member Giles Chichester said that despite what seems to be a long lead-in time, he'd be “astonished” if operators didn’t “take the hint” and adjust their rates quickly. The package is a compromise and it’s unclear whether the various EP political parties will buy it, said Maltese Socialist MEP Joseph Muscat. Only one parliamentary group, the Christian Democrats, has signalled acceptance, he said; others are reviewing. Muscat said he had hoped that negotiators would “go the extra mile” by making the Eurotariff automatic, without consumers having to opt into any plan. “I don’t take the support of my group for granted on this issue,” he said. The compromise sets wholesale price caps so low operators will be hard-pressed to compete below them, a GSM Assn. (GSMA) spokesman said. Companies worry about the proposed annual cap reductions, which seem arbitrary and not based on how actual costs may change, he said. GSMA still is analyzing the deal’s potential effect on operators, but it’s concerned about having to contact all customers about which tariff they prefer, the spokesman said. Providers favor an opt-in approach where the consumer decides whether to shift to a different rate, he said. The Council is expected to endorse the compromise package today (Wed.). ITRE votes on it May 21; the full parliament, May 24. If the Council accepts the package, telecom ministers will formally ratify it when they meet June 7, ITRE said.
EU and U.S. officials Mon. noted differences of opinion over the airline passenger name record (PNR) program, but said they believe a new agreement will be reached before an interim arrangement expires in July. Meeting with the European Parliament (EP) Civil Liberties, Justice & Home Affairs Committee, U.S. Homeland Security Secy. Michael Chertoff said extensive data, including phone numbers and e- mail addresses, is needed to help protect the U.S. against terrorism. MEPs continued to raise privacy concerns.
EC proposals for telecom regulatory reform may not emerge until Oct., we're told. The EC has maintained -- and Information Society & Media Comr. Viviane Reding’s spokesman repeated Thurs. -- that proposals arising from its extensive review of the 2003 e-communications regulatory framework (NRF) will be out this summer. But experts suggested the timetable has slipped due to debate on contentious issues such as EU-level regulatory coordination, including creation of an “EU FCC,” an idea backed Thurs. by the incoming Portuguese Presidency.
The German Presidency will propose increasing public financing of Europe’s Galileo satellite navigation project, Transport Council Pres. Wolfgang Tiefensee said Mon. With an industry consortium assigned to build and deploy Galileo’s 30 satellites likely to miss a May 10 deadline for ironing out major problems with the program, Tiefensee thinks the public- private partnership requires reconsideration but isn’t dead, a Presidency spokesman said.
The European Parliament (EP) Thurs. delayed its vote on an EC proposal to cap international mobile roaming fees, after failing to reach accord with the Commission on key issues. There was no official confirmation of a new date for the plenary vote, set for May 10, but it’s “safe to assume” it will occur during the May 20-24 session in Strasbourg, an EP spokesman told us. If compromise comes by then, he said, Information Society & Media Comr. Viviane Reding’s summer timetable for cutting roaming rates could hold. Though 2 days of talks have left a “host of issues” unresolved, some movement took place, the spokesman said. The most intractable problems revolve around competing caps pushed by the Council, the EC and the EP Industry Committee (ITRE), and the question of whether consumers should have to opt in or opt out of the pan-European tariff, he said. Once a final compromise is on the table, ITRE, which spearheaded vetting the EC proposal, must endorse it prior to a plenary vote, he said, but a late May vote could occur even without a compromise. The delay is an attempt to reach accord with the Council of Ministers in the first reading, a Council spokeswoman said. The Council is to consider any action emerging from Parliament at its June 7 meeting, she said: “It will do so, even if there is no pre-negotiated agreement reached with the EP.” Without a prior agreement, the EP spokesman said, the Council can agree to all parliamentary amendments -- an unlikely scenario -- or make its own changes to the EP position. The Council isn’t bound by a timetable, the spokesman said, but it would be “politically risky” for govts. to step back from a vow to endorse an EP compromise. The GSM Assn., which has lobbied hard against the EC’s “unprecedented and highly interventionist step,” said “it isn’t surprising that some policymakers would have fundamental reservations about imposing the kind of rigid controls envisaged y the Commission and the ITRE Committee,” given the market’s competitive, vibrant state. Reding’s spokesman couldn’t be reached for comment.
WIPO may face make-or-break time on broadcast copyright protection updates, given reaction to its latest draft. In an April 20 “non-paper,” Standing Committee on Copyright & Related Rights (SCCR) Chmn. Jukka Liedes said the draft was hard to write because countries’ opinions “diverge greatly, and in many cases point to opposite directions.” Irate digital rights and consumer groups and ISPs said addition of new rights-based protections marks a backward step that could wreck the treaty process.
The U.S., ranked 15th in broadband takeup in a survey (CD April 24 p1) by the Organization for Economic Cooperation & Development (OECD), said Tues. the methodology behind that ranking may be faulty. In a letter to OECD Secy.-Gen. Angel Gurria, U.S. Coordinator for International Communications and Information Policy David Gross said under-reporting of broadband penetration could affect policy decisions in nations relying on the body for accurate analysis.
The French govt. wants to force ISPs and web hosts to hold personal data on subscribers for law enforcement use for as long as 3 years, digital rights group Imaginons un reseau Internet solidaire (IRIS) said Fri. If adopted, the decree would fit into a 2004 measure transposing the EU e-commerce directive into national law. But while existing law requires a year of data storage, the proposal would allow information, once obtained, to be held for 3 years if interior and defense ministers approve, IRIS said. The proposal casts too broad a net in terms of content subject to retention, IRIS said. Data are supposed to be held only to identify who contributes to the creation of content on a website, the decree proposes to store subscriber passwords as well. That is “manifestly excessive and not pertinent,” IRIS said, nor does the law the rules implement justify it. Letting police demand and receive access to such information for so long, with no judicial oversight, sets the decree in conflict with French and EU data retention law, the group said. With elections underway in France, it’s not clear if the proposal will be approved in current form, said IRIS Pres. Meryem Marzouki. New ministers “may decide to modify the text,” she said, but in any case, it should be vetted by France’s data protection agency and other administrative authorities.
German federal ministers approved legislation Wed. that adopts EU rules for mandatory retention of telephone and Internet traffic data into national law. The draft, which now goes to the upper house of Parliament for debate and a vote, would amend the Telecom Surveillance Ordinance in criminal cases while enhancing privacy rights and taking into account rulings of the Federal Constitutional Court, according to a translation by German telecom lawyer Axel Spies. It bars surveillance “if there are indications that it will only lead to information that pertains to the inner privacy sphere of the individual,” he said -- once that becomes known, surveillance must stop. In addition, such information can’t be used in a criminal proceeding and must immediately be deleted. The bill requires that all traffic data be stored for 6-months by public voice and data providers and that all traffic data of public telecom providers be stored in Germany or another EU country, Spies said. It doesn’t require providers to be reimbursed for costs of data retention, but allows them to request payment under a law granting reimbursement to witnesses and experts in the course of specific govt. investigations. German alternative providers are in the process of analyzing the complicated draft, but they believe any law that doesn’t provide fair reimbursement of storage costs is unconstitutional, Spies said on behalf of the German Competitive Carriers Assn.: “The vast amount of data that carriers and providers must store, just in case law enforcement needs it, will become a supermarket for the law enforcement agencies.”
The European Parliament (EP) industry committee’s overwhelming support for international mobile roaming rate caps will send a “clear signal” to consumers and the telecom industry, Austrian MEP Paul Rubig said Thurs. Rubig, who authored the official report for the Industry, Research & Energy (ITRE) committee on the EC plan to regulate wholesale and retail roaming charges, said the 49-3 vote will also put lawmakers in a strong bargaining position with the Council of Ministers. ITRE, in cooperation with the internal market committee (IMCO), has taken the lead on the proposal and was the last of several EP panels to vote on it before it comes up next month in plenary. MEPs backed a compromise package of 17 amendments, winnowed down from 348 originally filed in ITRE alone, Rubig said. One key amendment sets a maximum price mobile operators can charge each other for handling roaming calls from other networks of 0.23 euro cents, twice the average transmission rate across the 27 member countries. At the retail level, the “European consumer protection tariff” would allow companies to charge no more than 40 euro cents per minute to make roaming calls, and 15 euro cents per minute to receive them, well below the numbers suggested by the EC and Council, Rubig said. Prices were set in anticipation of a likely industry legal challenge, he said. On another major issue, ITRE approved an opt-out scheme requiring operators automatically to shift customers to the EU tariff unless they opt for a lower-priced package. Wholesale rates will kick in immediately for mobile operators, one month later for consumers, Rubig said. Legislators also approved an automatic “push” SMS system to alert roaming consumers about the rates, and a freephone number where they can get information on roaming and texting prices. In addition, phones must display an icon when a user is outside his or her home country. The regulation will sunset in 3 years if the EC determines the roaming market to be competitive, Rubig said; if not, a fresh initiative will be necessary. ITRE is “at odds” with the EC over the need for clear rates for data transfers, he said; the panel wants them established now. Still, he said, the compromise, which adopted many of IMCO’s amendments as well, gives the EP a “strong negotiating mandate.” Information Society & Media Comr. Viviane Reding said the vote showed that “loudly, the bell is now tolling for international mobile roaming charges in Europe.” All parliamentary committees charged with considering her proposal have signaled support for wholesale and retail regulation and greater price openness, she said. Mobile operators, not surprisingly, were less enthusiastic. They want any Euro tariff to be set at least 65 euro cents for making and 35 for receiving calls. In addition, they urged the EC to let operators and their customers decide on rate schemes instead of being stuck with caps.