The European Commission is poised to take legal action against
member states whose former telecommunication monopolies have failed
to open the local loop to competition.
Erkki Liikanen, Commissioner for Enterprise and the Information
Society, announced the move on Thursday. "There is no reason to
delay," he said.
Earlier this week 13 telecoms companies - including KPNQwest,
Energis and Worldcom - wrote to the commission complaining that
incumbent telecoms companies were failing to allow new entrants
fair access to the telephone lines that lead directly to people's
homes and to businesses.
The companies said in their letter that prices for access to the
local loop varied across Europe by as much as 300%, and that
delivery times showed "extraordinary deterioration".
In Germany, for example, it can take up to nine months for a
competitor to activate an asynchronous digital subscriber line
(ADSL) connection for a customer. In the UK, competitor access is
further complicated by "exorbitant migration charges", they
said.
Liikanen acknowledged the complaints, saying that the problem was
not only about anti-competitive pricing by the incumbents but also
the long delays they imposed on leasing lines to competitors.
"Those countries that are slowest to liberalise [the
telecommunication infrastructure] are paying high costs," Liikanen
said. "Those countries also see lower Internet penetration."
The commissioner would not divulge which member states were the
worst offenders. He said that more details would be forthcoming
next week when the commission publishes its annual report on the
process of telecommunication liberalisation in the European Union
(EU).
Liikanen said that high-speed Internet access across ADSL lines has
developed during the year. "The incumbents have been very active in
developing ADSL, but some competitors cannot get there."
The EU passed a law at the beginning of this year forcing member
states to open up the local loop to competition. "We can force
member states to liberalise the last mile," the commissioner said.