Telecommunication ministers from Europe are likely to veto the
package of reforms passed by the European Parliament on
Wednesday.
But if they do not, the reforms, which could give greater
protection to citizens' online rights, could be implemented by the
end of 2010, communications commissioner Viviane Reding said
yesterday.
Ministers want to give network operators and access providers
the right to manage traffic at their own discretion; MEPs say
changes to the quality of service customers receive should be done
only in response to a court order.
A spokesman for the European Parliament said the ministers, who
meet on 12 June, have up to four months to send their official
revised legal text back to parliament. "It is highly unlikely that
the council will accept the European Parliament's position," the
spokesman said.
Once the European Parliament has received the telecom ministers'
position, it has up to two months to convene a conciliation
committee of MEPs to negotiate with ministers on its behalf. The
conciliation could take another two months.
"If parliament and council reach an agreement in conciliation,
parliament will have to hold its third (and last) reading within
six to eight weeks," the spokesman said.
The final decision might only be taken in February next
year.
The spokesman said all three legislative documents are
interlinked. As long one (the Trauttman report) is not adopted, the
whole package is not agreed.
If passed the reforms will change the telecommunications
environment in the following ways:
1. A right of European consumers to change, in one working day,
fixed or mobile operator while keeping their old phone number.
Currently to change a number in the EU takes 8.5 days for a mobile
number and 7.5 days for a fixed number on average, and some
customers wait two to three weeks.
2. Access providers will have to spell out clearly and
unambiguously what citizens sign up for, and, in particular, what
they can or cannot do with those communications services. Consumer
contracts must specify, among other things
• Minimum service quality levels
• Compensation and refunds if these levels are not met
• Subscriber's options to be listed in telephone directories
and
• Clear information on the qualifying criteria for promotional
offers.
3. A new European telecoms authority called BEREC (Body of
European Regulators for Electronic Communications) will help ensure
fair competition and more consistency of regulation on the telecoms
markets. BEREC decisions will usually be taken by majority of the
heads of the 27 national regulatory authorities. BEREC decisions
will be prepared by an independent office with expert staff.
4. New EU telecoms rules will give the commission the power to
oversee and force the withdrawal of national regulators' decisions
to avoid inconsistent regulation that distorts competition in the
single telecoms market. The commission will also be able to make
binding decisions on national regulators.
5. National telecoms regulators will have more political
independence from their national governments, including protection
against arbitrary dismissal of national regulators.
6. National telecoms regulators will be able to force telecoms
operators to separate communication networks from their service
branches to sharpen competition in markets while maintaining
incentives for investment in new networks. In the UK functional
separation in January 2006 triggered a surge in broadband
connections from 100,000 unbundled lines in December 2005 to 5.5
million three years later.
7. Reallocation of radio spectrum following the switch from
analogue to digital broadcasting will help overcome the "digital
divide" between urban and rural areas. Only 70% of the population
in rural areas of the EU have access to a broadband network
connection. The reform will allow wireless broadband services in
regions where putting in optical fibre is too costly.
8. The new GSM Directive will allow any service, starting with
3G and extending to new technologies, to operate in the GSM band
which is currently reserved exclusively for GSM services. This will
lead to industry savings estimated at €1.6bn in capital costs for a
single Europe-wide network, and enable faster roll-out of full 3G
coverage. This will boost take-up of 3G in the EU from over 90
million in December 2008. 3G penetration rates are currently the
highest in Italy, Austria, Sweden and the UK where they exceed 20%
of the total subscribers.
9. The new rules bring legal certainty for investment in next
generation access (NGA) networks based on new optical fibre and
wireless network technologies. The commission started the
public consultation on NGA networks in September 2008 and will
start a second soon.
The rules governing sharing network elements such as ducts or
in-building wiring, between operators are also updated. Besides
improving competition and services for businesses and consumers,
this will also help lower the overall financial costs for operators
of deploying NGA networks.
10. National telecoms authorities will have the powers to set
minimum quality levels for network transmission services so as to
promote "net neutrality" and "net freedoms". European consumers
will have a greater choice of competing broadband service
providers, who are expected to use traffic management tools to
differentiate their product by quality of service and price or to
restrict some uses of the bandwidth, such as video, voice and peer
to peer file-sharing.
11. The new telecoms rules recognise explicitly that internet
access is
part of fundamental rights such as the freedom of expression
and the freedom to access information. The rules therefore provide
that any measures taken regarding access to or use of services and
applications through electronic communications networks must
respect the fundamental rights and freedoms of citizens, including
privacy, freedom of expression and access to information and
education, as well as due process. The new rules also clarify that
the final word on this important matter of internet access must be
with a judicial authority. The Council of Telecoms Ministers so far
has been against this.
12.
Privacy is a priority of the new telecoms rules. Names, email
addresses and bank account information of the customers of telecoms
and internet service providers, and especially the data about every
phone call and internet session, need to be kept safe. The new
rules introduce mandatory notifications for personal data breaches.
This means that communications providers will be obliged to inform
the authorities and their customers about security breaches that
affect their personal data.
Users will have to opt-in to receive cookies. (Cookies are small
programs that allow the cookie owner to track the user through
cyberspace). They will also have more control over what happens to
their personal data, and they will find it easier to exercise
control over their personal information in practice. Internet
service providers will have the right to sue spammers.
13. All communications services providers will have to provide
better access to emergency services such as the 112 number. They
will also have to improve access for those with disabilities.