EU seeks single market for online services
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The European Commission will make  proposals by mid-2008 aimed at creating a single European  market in the burgeoning sector of online music, films and  games, it said on Thursday.
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A European group says PCs and operating systems should be sold separately to boost competition.
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The EU is backing a project that would let viewers personalise shows and films to suit their tastes.
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The European Commission launched a drive to boost consumer confidence in buying online, amid signs of mistrust about making cross-border purchases over the Internet.
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The European Commission proposes co-ordinated anti-terror measures targeting flight data and the web.
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A proposed law would require companies to keep detailed data about peopleâs Internet and phone use that goes beyond a European Union directive.
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(InfoWorld) - The European Union's 27 national telecom authorities must submit plans to regulate the single European market by Feb. 16Â or face ceding those powers to the European Commission, Telecommunications Commissioner Viviane Reding has warned. The Commission wants the national regulators to join forces to form an E.U.-wide independent body akin to the U.S. Federal Communications Commission. It gave them until mid February to submit plans so that it could draft legislation by July. "A European Union-wide regulator would be a temporary body. It would be disbanded once the transition to a single competitive telecoms market is over," said Martin Selmayr, Reding's spokesman, on Monday. Several of the national regulatory bodies have failed to prove they are independent from their governments and incumbent monopoly phone companies. Currently, the national regulators enforce Europe-wide telecom rules in their own countries. However, they take different positions in interpreting the same rules. The U.K., for example, has cracked down on former monopoly provider BT Group, while Commission officials complain that Germany has allowed Deutsche TelekomÂ to keep a grip on the fixed-line local loop and even receive permission to build a high-speed Internet network without sharing access with competitors. Some countries are creating their own telecom laws without consulting their E.U. neighbors. The German regulator, for example, has failed to stop the German government from proposing a law that would grant the former monopoly Deutsche Telekom protection from competition. Other countries have failed to transpose European telecom rules into their national statute books. In a letter to all national regulators sent at the end of last year, Reding warned that failure to submit a workable proposal for an FCC-type organization by Feb. 16 would leave her no choice but to propose greater authority for the Commission. Reding is conducting a review of all the laws agreed in the late 1990s designed to forge a single European telecom market out of all the national ones, with open competition throughout the E.U.
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Telefonia in UE: mercato unico? SÃ¬, ma solo per gli operatori. Diritti, tariffe e contratti diversi per i consumatori, anche di fronte a servizi e gestori identici. Questa lâaltra faccia della realtÃ  sulle Tlc in Europa secondo i consumatori.
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Registration. This law will support a single economic space and bring BiH closer to the European Union by establishing a new, efficient, transparent and uniform business registration system, which is to be ...
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Keeping skewed markets on an even keel The European Commission will investigate public service broadcasting's use of new media to determine whether state aid to broadcasters is unfair to commercial competitors.â¦
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Companies will offer new online services that go beyond the PC.
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(InfoWorld) - The European Commission asked the German regulatory authority, the Federal Network Agency, Monday to do more to ensure a level playing field in the market for high-speed optical fiber connections to the home or office. It is asking the regulator to help secure adequate access to the market for competitors to Deutsche Telekom AG. The Commission -- the executive and regulatory branch of the European Union -- also asked the national regulator to complete its market analysis for access to the new super fast networks, dubbed next-generation networks (NGNs). "The Commission is keen to ensure that NGNs can be deployed and made accessible in a consistent and transparent manner across Europe," said Viviane Reding, EU telecom commissioner. "It is vital that we ensure effective competition and the legal certainty necessary for all market players to invest in new products and services that will benefit consumers." In May the Federal Network Agency notified the Commission of rules designed to force Deutsche Telekom to grant competitors access to its copper fixed telephone network. As Deutsche Telekom is upgrading its network by rolling out optical fibre-based connections, these rules also apply during the transition to the new infrastructure. In a letter sent to the national regulator Monday, the Commission did not challenge its market definition of local loop unbundling but raised a number of issues on regulatory remedies. Having examined the rules, the Commission said they were a step in the right direction but ultimately they have failed to ensure fair competition. "There are more issues to be tackled, we want more remedies," said Martin Selmayr, a Commission spokesman in charge of telecom-related issues, at a press conference Monday. The rollout of fiber closer to the customers, normally to the street cabinets, enables the provision of high bandwidth services but it raises important issues regarding the position of alternative operators that currently benefit from access obligations of Deutsche Telekom's existing networks. As alternative operators in Germany roll out their own infrastructure to local exchanges, these operators now need an economic way of reaching the new access points provided in street cabinets. The Commission is asking the German telecom regulator to guarantee that access to Deutsche Telekom's existing copper network by its competitors remains efficient during the rollout of NGNs. In the new networks, the number of access points required by an alternative operator will be many times higher than that for the traditional fixed telephony network. In many cases there would no longer be a business case for alternative operators to extend their network down to the street cabinets, the Commission said. Therefore, the Commission stresses the importance of ensuring appropriate alternative access solutions as NGNs are deployed. The Commission can't force the national regulator to take action but its opinion cannot be ignored, Selmayr said. At the same time, the deployment of NGNs raises questions as to how competitors may continue benefiting from current access obligations, in the future, while maintaining incentives to invest for both the incumbent and new entrants. Deutsche Telekom has begun delivering IP (Internet Protocol) services such as telephony, television and Internet access over VDSL (Very high bit rate DSL) to customers in some German cities. It has asked the regulator to exempt its VDSL service from a requirement that it lease its infrastructure to competitors on reasonable terms, claiming that without the exclusive right to use the infrastructure, it cannot fund the necessary investment.
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Take that, Luxembourg! The European Commission's reform of VAT on internet-delivered services such as software, ringtones and music has been adopted and will take effect from 2015.â¦
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InfoWorld - The European Commission is turning to video-sharing Web site YouTube.com to disseminate information about the workings of the European Union to its citizens, through a new channel on the site called EUtube, it announced Friday.
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Over the past few years, the Internet has seen new domain names such as '.eu' for Europe and '.travel' for the travel industry.Comment
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Agrees on the need for harmonisation The European Commission has taken the first steps towards an EU-wide license for Ultra Wide Band (UWB) radio communications, by agreeing that such an approach is necessary and laying down the basic pattern of adoption.â¦
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The European Commission sought Wednesday to boost Europe&#39;s chances of dominating the emerging market for mobile television technology by pushing for a single European standard.