In Europe, divided we fall: Progress needs a single market - A User's View

CommunicationsWeek International, Feb 4, 2002 by Ewan Sutherland

The disappointment of the new European Union legislative package is the lack of movement towards a single market. The demands for progress have been repeated endlessly, but national differences and sensitivities won out. Today, for example, companies have to publicize a different national number for their products and services. From May 2003, operators will be required to route calls made to country code 3883, a single European numbering space. Yet the originating calls on mobile and fixed networks appear likely to be priced on the whim of the operators, making the service difficult to manage.

In January 2001, the unbundling of the local loop became EU law. In December, the European Commission had to begin infringement proceedings against Germany, Greece and Portugal to ensure its enforcement. The Commission had been forced to accept that the U.K. regulator OFTEL was trying--in the sense of making an effort, even if it seemed to be doing nothing more than waving its arms around. The sad truth is that even Sweden, the European leader in high-speed access, is years behind South Korea. Too many operators are intent on playing sophisticated gamesmanship in the broadband market. For example, cable operators in the U.S. are restricting the use of the Internet by blocking IPSec. They are trying to force home-workers and teleworkers to pay higher tariffs.

It is soon to be the year of the horse, in which China, now the world's largest national mobile telecommunications market, will overtake the European Union. Japan and South Korea seem undaunted by the lack of progress in 3G services--they already have a 4G forum. They should recall that the sins of the fathers are visited unto the third and the fourth generations.

Ewan Sutherland is the executive director of INTUG Europe, the International Telecommunications User Group, based in Brussels