History is perhaps not on Kroes' side here, with communications networks arising in an inherently national manner, with interconnections being made to enable cross-network, and intra-country, communications, but perhaps, given the idea of a single European market, communications should be offered on a truly pan-European basis.
I am not sure how certain parties would feel about this, though — would local regulators want to be effectively franchises of a centralised regulatory agency? Would local security services and national security functions welcome the idea that other agencies may have better access to communications data and content about "their" citizens than they do?
Or would the economies of scale which could be made from such an approach outweigh the benefits — one centralised infrastructure, across dual sites perhaps for resiliency, but without a need to maintain a core network in each market in which the service is offered.
Could this also be a way for network operators to compete with over the top communications service providers, which are already pan-European, even pan-global, in nature?
The Treaty of Rome established the European Community with the goal of creating a common market, an economic and monetary union and the implementation of common policies promoting the balanced development of economic activities to increase the quality of life and social cohesion amongst Member States. The removal of obstacles to the free movement of goods, persons, services and capital was crucial to achieving this goal. An objective for both the Convention on Jurisdiction and Enforcement and Regulation 44/2010 was developing the EU as a zone of freedom, security and justice where the free movement of individuals is assured and litigants can enjoy facilities equivalent to that enjoyed in their own countries. The divergence of national legislation and legal uncertainty were major obstacles to the development of information society services and the proper functioning of the internal market.
ReplyDeleteLegal certainty required for businesses and consumers had to be accomplished based on internal market principles of mutual recognition and country of origin control. These two complementary features required member states to ensure that providers of information society services in their respective territories complied with applicable national laws and freedom to provide information society services from another member state was not restricted.
The idea that the regulation of telecom networks was developing in an “inherently national manner” is precisely why the Body of European Regulators of Electronic Communications (BEREC) was formed to harmonize the European regulation of the telecom sector to facilitate a common internal market. However, it would seem appropriate for National Regulatory Authorities (NRAs) to maintain their independence to implement European Regulations in their respective countries bearing in mind the national political, social and security contexts in which they operate. Operators can revert to BEREC where they feel that national regulators are in error.
I also think that the idea of a centralized infrastructure to provide services to Europe would go contrary to the principles of competition, mutual recognition and country of origin control and degenerate the European market to a case of monopoly.
What needs to happen is a careful review of what individuals like Neelie Kroes consider needless and artificial obstacles to a single telecom market with the view of ensuring that barriers to entry in telecom market segments are removed to increase the competitiveness of the sector. Both BEREC and NRAs also need to ensure that European Regulations governing the sector are harmonized so that all operators in all countries are subject to the same governance structures. This will create regulatory certainty across Europe and foster the achievement of a single internal market.
Fantastic comment.
ReplyDeleteI think there's an awful lot of truth in what you write there, Zizi, although I wonder if the tension that you outline — between the desire for a single market on the one hand, and the national political, social and security contexts on the other — is one which can be successfully addressed.
For example, if I were building a cellular network on a single European model, I'd be likely to put core network elements in one country, perhaps with a failover in another. This seems to be exactly what Kroes is suggesting, but national bodies — perhaps not necessarily the telecommunications regulator — might not support it. It would be interesting to see whether this brought out a particular strength of feeling about European integration, if national security is indeed posed as the sticking point.
Whilst equivalence of legal and regulatory frameworks would make it easier for an operator to build a second infrastructure in another country without much in the way of additional regulatory burden, I am not sure it would do much to reduce costs. It would also be interesting to see whether Kroes' plan extends to spectrum licensing too — does a company buy capacity once, and then can use it wherever in Europe (which would seem an ineffecient use of spectrum), or will the need to buy spectrum in multiple countries (barrier to entry) remain...