European Commission Announces "Connected Continent" Proposals

The European Commission’s Connected Continent plan aims to create a unified telecommunications market within the 28 member states that reduces end user costs for cross border communications but also makes it easier for service providers to gain scale in their businesses.

In part, the new proposed rules would simplify telecom regulations across the EU, giving service providers access to all 28 markets with a single authorization. The proposal also aims to loosen regulations and streamline wholesale network access procedures for service providers wanting to use an incumbent network.

While not mandating specific new roaming rate reductions, the proposal bans incoming call charges starting on July 1, 2014. That will essentially encourage service providers to offer phone plans that apply everywhere in the European Union, with no distinctions between domestic and roaming prices.

The plan also will allow customers to “decouple” their domestic calling service from their roaming calling service, using a single subscriber information module.

The proposal also prohibits companies from charging more for a fixed network intra-EU call than they do for a long-distance domestic call within the EU region.

For mobile intra-EU calls, the price could not be more than €0.19 per minute (plus VAT), lowering costs for consumers.

The proposed network neutrality rules have several elements. Blocking and throttling of Internet content and apps would be banned, giving users access to the full and open internet regardless of the cost or speed of their internet subscription.

On the other hand, service providers will be able to create and sell “specialized services” with assured quality (such as IPTV, video on demand, apps including high-resolution medical imaging, virtual operating theaters, and business-critical data-intensive cloud applications) so long as this did not interfere with the Internet speeds promised to other customers using “best effort” Internet access services.

In doing so, the EC is trying to preserve best effort Internet access without prohibiting the development of new types of managed services that actually require quality of service guarantees or features.

The proposal also would coordinate spectrum assignment across the EC region, to make it easier to provide EC-wide 4G mobile access and Wi-Fi access.