With only half of EU governments meeting the...
With only half of EU governments meeting the Jan. 1 deadline for making 4G spectrum available, the European Commission Tuesday “reluctantly” granted nine of 14 requests for delay on the grounds of exceptional circumstances, it said. Countries were supposed to…
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make the 800 MHz digital dividend spectrum available for wireless services by the beginning of this year, it said. “This is a pragmatic and final concession” because every postponement in releasing spectrum hurts the economy and frustrates citizens, said Digital Agenda Commissioner Neelie Kroes. Spectrum reform that includes more coordination in frequency assignments across Europe will be a centerpiece of the upcoming EC proposal for a telecom single market, she said. One consequence of the delay is that phones considered by consumers to be essential devices aren’t fully functional in Europe, the EC said. Phone makers leave out the radio chips needed to connect in Europe because not enough countries have delivered the spectrum on time, it said. The EC agreed to postponements for Spain, Cyprus, Lithuania, Hungary, Malta, Austria, Poland, Romania and Finland. Meanwhile, a meeting last week with Kroes resulted in the “reassuring” takeaway that the “EU competition model constitutes a cornerstone of the telecoms framework and it is this model that the Commission intends to continue building on,” the European Competitive Telecommunications Association (ECTA) said Tuesday. CEOs urged the EC to consider the key role that challenger operators are playing in driving innovation and choice for consumers and businesses in the voice and broadband markets, it said. In the transition to a next-generation access network environment, alternative players should continue driving growth by competing on the basis of their investments, network-sharing and access to dominant telcos’ networks on fair terms, it said. ECTA genuinely welcomes the EC’s single-market goals, so long as the rules of the game remain fair and aren’t changed overnight to favor dominant operators, it said.