European telecoms — Deutsche Telekom, Orange, Telefonica and Telecoms Italia — a part of the lobbying group ETNO, today said European parliament decision to end mobile phone roaming fees was a step in the wrong direction.
Though telecom operators are facing crisis situation, mobile subscribers will benefit from the move in a big way.
“The question now is whether operators feel they can work within the scope of the regulation to offer the services they plan to – a last minute lobbying effort to remove some of the wording of what constitutes such services suggests not. The fear exists around whether even basic (and generally accepted), forms of traffic management will be permissible under the Commissioner’s vision for an open Internet,” said Matthew Howett, head of Ovum’s telecom regulation practice.
Following parliament’s backing, the measures will become law after they are approved by the European Council, which represents the EU’s member states. After further discussions, the Council is expected to take a decision in October.
“Thursday’s vote risks derailing the original objectives of the Connected Continent Regulation, namely a strong European digital industry igniting growth and jobs creation,” said ETNO head Luigi Gambardella.
Ovum says at the heart of the net neutrality debate is whether fixed and mobile operators should be able to charge more for different levels of Internet access and prioritize certain traffic over others.
Telecoms fear that they won’t be able to invest to meet future bandwidth demands unless they are able to better monetize the access they offer. Internet companies fear that start-ups , consumers and innovation will suffer if there is a further movement away from the current nature of the Internet.
In a sitting of the European Parliament in Brussels, lawmakers backed legislation that will phase out roaming fees across the 28-country European Union by December 2015.
At the same time, the parliament voted in favor of maintaining net neutrality, effectively declaring that all traffic on the Internet should be treated equally, regardless of the source or the content.
This will be a big boost for global Internet content providers such as Netflix, Youtube, Facebook etc. They will not be charged extra by telecom service providers for supplying their content – on high speed networks — to mobile subscribers.
The decision is a move to limit the ability of network operators to provide quicker Internet access to content providers in exchange for a fee and is another decision in favor of consumers, Reuters reported.
Telecom sector analysts estimate telecoms revenues could fall around five percent without roaming fees, although the Commission argues that since more consumers will use their mobiles as a result, some of the impact will be offset.
Operators are fighting for a share of the profits from video streaming and music downloads to offset declining revenues in their traditional phone services. Sales are forecast to fall for the fifth consecutive year in 2014, Reuters reported.
The industry says charging for different services and speeds would help fund network upgrades. But Internet activists say that goes against the spirit of an open Internet and would lead to the creation of a two-speed system.
picture source: webmedia
