MuniWireless

I’m afraid the news is good and bad. Viviane Reding, proponent of structural separation, enemy of the incumbent telco and EU telecoms commissioner for many years, has been promoted to vice-president of the European Commission and the head of justice and internal security.

Neelie Kroes, who has been the EU’s feared competition czar, will take over Reding’s former job. Judging from what I’ve seen in the past few years, Kroes is not as anti-incumbent as Reding, but we shall see. Reding…

The European Commission has endorsed the rules to be imposed by French regulator, ARCEP, on operators rolling out fiber lines into homes, regardless of whether the operator has significant market power. ARCEP wants to force all in-building operators to provide access to their fiber networks to alternative operators in order to give people a choice of competing providers of high-speed Internet access.

For the very densely populated areas, ARCEP also requires any in-building operator to meet “reasonable requests from alternative operators…

The European Commission has laid out plans for a coordinated use of wireless spectrum as the move to digital TV has resulted in more spectrum available for broadband. The Commission estimates that the plan will give the economy a boost of €20 to €50 billion.

“The digital dividend is a once in a lifetime opportunity to make ‘broadband for all’ a reality all over Europe and boost some of the most innovative sectors of our economy. Europe will only make the…

Considered “an essential infrastructure for our society”, 4G mobile networks are now a top priority for the European Commission which has just decided to fund research related to Long Term Evolution (LTE) technology. As of 1 January 2010, the EU will invest €18 million into research that will underpin next generation 4G mobile networks.

“With LTE technologies, Europe’s research ‘know-how’ will continue to set the tone for the development of mobile services and devices around the globe, just as we did…

The European Union is one step closer to expanding the wireless frequencies that cellular operators can use for mobile broadband service. The Council of Ministers has approved an amendment to the GSM Directive of 1987. That directive had reserved part of the 900 MHz spectrum for GSM services. The current amendment allows the carriers to use the 900 MHz frequency band for 3G and more advanced cellular technologies to provide pan-European mobile broadband services. The renewed Directive will enter into force…

Europeans going on holiday this summer will get a very pleasant surprise: lower roaming charges. Viviane Reding, EU telecoms commissioner, is happy to announce that that roaming rip-off is now coming to an end.

Beginning 1 July 2009, the new roaming charges are:

To prevent “bill shocks”, once a customer’s bill reaches 50 EUR, the customer will be warned…