ComReg duck a bullet.....for now.

clohamon

Back in March the European Council (not to be confused with the Council of the EU) issued an innocent looking conclusion to its Spring meeting.

the European Council notes the Commission's intention to report well before October on the state of play and the remaining obstacles to be tackled so as to ensure the completion of a fully functioning Digital Single Market by 2015, as well as concrete measures to establish the single market in Information and Communications Technology as early as possible;

It’s not clear who originally asked the Commission to do this, but by September it had finalised its proposals (collectively called “Connected Continent”) and had decided to proceed by regulation rather than a directive. i.e. what they proposed would have direct legal effect from day one rather than waiting for transposition into national law at a pace to be decided by individual countries. The effect would be take away ComReg's authority on spectrum management, spectrum trading, copper network access prices, general authorisation of telecommunications operators, net neutrality and consumer rights . Additionally, the EU regulators group, BEREC, considered to be a lapdog of the national regulators, would face a change. Having failed to provide impetus to developing the single market, it would now have an executive chairman chosen on merit from a short list supplied by the Commission. “Connected Continent” was to take effect by July 1st 2014.


Six weeks after "Connected Continent" was published the department and ComReg went to meet the Joint Committee on Communications and Communications to state their views on “Connected Continent". For nearly an hour in front of the Committee they alternately patronised and disparaged the proposals, indicating that they were “noble” and "ambitious” but also hasty, ill though out, piecemeal, inadequate, confusing, inflexible and grasping. On the other hand they found the proposals of Katherine Trautmann MEP, to be superior. She had advocated a process that could last until 2018, and coincidentally the European Parliament was to vote on her proposals the next day.

By the reaction of the committee members, the officials appear to have hit the right buttons. The chair John O’Mahoney seemed to be aware that he was being played, but the scaremongering of the officials over a 'loss of sovereignty' and being 'marginalised' got a particularly sympathetic reception from the other TDs, and so in a ‘reasoned opinion’ issued after the session, the Committee duly endorsed the views of the department and the regulator.

The following day Ms Trautmann’s proposals were adopted by the EU Parliament. A subsequent meeting of the Council of the EU (Transport and Communications Ministers) held on December 5th was also unenthusiastic about the Commission’s regulation, preferring to persevere with the existing directives. So it looks like ComReg can breath easy for the moment. The next milestone will be the European Council meeting on March 20th. It should be evident from that whether the Commission’s proposal still has legs and teeth or whether ComReg will be allowed to continue as before.

Quotation of the session:

"We would not be quite so negative as to say it is a negative proposal"
Katherine Licken (Asst Secretary DCENR)

watty

Pity.
But eventually Ofcom, Comreg and other obstacles should be purely local complaint investigation of Interference. It can take a year for Comreg or Ofcom to process a complaint and in some cases then do nothing.

They are not enhancing infrastructure, or efficient use of spectrum, protecting spectrum or consumer. All they do really is raise revenue and maintain the Status Quo of large operators.

BarryM

A classic, the commission looking to expand its powers; directives require agreement, even with majority voting, while regulations generally don't.

OTOH, the present system, as it operates, is not likely to create a level playing field of digital anything, at an EU level, since it doesn't create one at national level.

Rather than the regulators being in the pockets of anybody or vice versa the game is (now) dictated by the big players - typically voda(name your country) and free in France who now own several other media outlets (panic in the political ranks in case anyone who isn't on 'our' side gets to own a newspaper or tv station).

Add to all that how the future will be funded, bunny R's cackhanded new tv license is an example, politicians and depts of finance scared shi*less that the money (and therefore the control) to fund state tele is coming from somewhere else and tv distributed via telecoms.....

Riding in from left field the european parliament, anxious to be seen to be doing something, anything, before the elections this year.

While we may be uncomfortable that Brussels takes over telecom regulation we have to ask what sort of regulation would we like instead - the present comreg? unlikely.

We need to open up a discussion including the technology options, the money source(s), the effect of the dead hand of big telecom/tv people, privacy, snooping, a proper plan, regularly upgraded and last but not least, input from the punters.