The communications revolution is driven by technology and market forces. The European Union has been at the heart of this process, setting the pace for opening markets, maintaining equal opportunities for all participants, defending consumer interests and even setting technical standards. Competition has forced prices down and quality up.
The result for individuals and businesses is cheaper and better services of a higher quality and reliability. Consumer choice has widened both in terms of suppliers and of services on offer. Demand for mobile telephones and internet access has exploded. Now 96% of schools in the EU are online, of which 67% percent have high-speed broadband connections. More than half the population are regular internet users.
One of the majority: a regular internet user.
The EU: an early mover
The EU fully liberalised its telecoms market in 1998. Since then, the convergence of communications and broadcasting technology via digitisation has forced the EU to redraw the regulatory boundaries to cover all “electronic communications networks and services” in a new regulatory framework which took effect in July 2003. After less than five years, this framework is itself under review.
From regulation to competition
The principal aims of the 2003 regulatory framework were to:
- reduce the regulatory burden on companies providing information society services after the more careful monitoring required during the liberalisation period;
- ensure that all customers have the right to a set of basic services at affordable prices (phone, fax, access to the internet, free emergency calls) and that people with disabilities have access to services;
- stimulate competition further by reducing the dominant position former national telecoms monopolies had maintained for certain services, like high-speed internet access.
Although the rules are applied separately by the authorities in each member state, national regulators coordinate their policies at EU level inter alia in the so-called European Regulators’ Group (ERG).
The latest regulatory review, launched by the European Commission in late 2007, seeks to simplify regulation even further and to create a single European agency to take over part of the regulatory function.
Preventing the digital divide
The EU is keen to ensure that citizens and businesses benefit from the information society. In 2006, the Commission acted to reduce the unjustifiably high prices citizens pay to use their mobile phones when travelling in another EU country. These so-called roaming charges fell by an average of more than 60% in 2007 with further, smaller, reductions due in 2008 and 2009.
Another, longer term, priority is to prevent a “digital divide” opening up between the richer and poorer (often outlying) EU regions with less access to the internet or new digital services, or between member states across the EU.
The EU has launched several initiatives to make high-speed broadband communications available to households, to expand e-business services for companies and to put public services online. High-quality telecoms services underpin the efficiency and competitiveness of all manufacturing and services sectors. There are three priorities:
- businesses and citizens must have access to an inexpensive, world-class communications infrastructure and a wide range of services;
- every citizen must obtain the skills needed to live and work in the information society;
- access to life-long learning is a basic component of the European social model.
Better online than in line
The current initiative, known as i2010, focuses on the near term. Broadband access to the internet, providing fast, cheap and permanent online communications, is the key enabling technology. Nearly 30% of EU households have broadband access, although the figures are lower for the member states which have joined the Union since 2004.
Under the motto, “better online than in line”, more than 90% of all providers of public services across the European Union are now online. The goal is to provide easy electronic access to 20 basic public services (filing income tax or VAT returns, registering new cars or changing car ownership, and so on).
In addition to schools and universities, the drive is on for libraries, museums and similar institutions to be connected to broadband networks. In addition, EU governments are to provide online health services to citizens, including information on illness prevention, online health records, teleconsultations, and the electronic reimbursement of medical expenses.
