European Parliamentary Research Service Blog
telecommunications policy
WIFI4EU – Promotion of internet connectivity in local communities [Plenary Podcast]
Written by Christian Scheinert, The Commission’s initiative aims at providing free access to fast internet in local communities. The European Parliament will discuss and vote on WIFI4EU in its September plenary. Background The Commission is of the opinion that the EU lags behind other industrialised nations, such as South Korea and Japan, when it comes … Continue reading
New radio frequencies for mobile internet services [EU Legislation in Progress]
Written by Marcin Szczepański (4th edition), While radio spectrum management is predominantly a national competence, EU policy plays an increasingly important role in its coordination and harmonisation. The EU actively seeks ways to harmonise use of the different bands of the spectrum to meet the ever-growing demand for wireless mobile broadband. Nevertheless, spectrum allocation in … Continue reading
5G network technology: Putting Europe at the leading edge
Written by Ron Davies, 5G refers to a future, fifth generation of mobile network telecommunications technologies. While research on the technical characteristics and potential uses of 5G is ongoing, 5G is expected to represent a major leap forward from current telecommunications technologies, including revolutionary changes in radio interfaces and spectrum use. On the basis of … Continue reading
The Added Value of EU policy on Mobile telephone roaming charges [European Added Value in Action]
See also a related infographic on the topic // Download a PDF version of this document. Written by Eva Casalprim Background International roaming allows a customer of a mobile network operator in one country to obtain telephone services – whether voice, SMS or data – from an operator in another country. The service provider ensures that the consumer … Continue reading
Roaming charges in the EU
The “roaming charge” refers to the cost of using mobile communications (typically with a mobile phone) to make and receive voice calls, send and receive data, or access other services, when travelling outside the geographical area of the user’s home network and using another network in the location they are visiting. (Eurostat) Wholesale prices refer … Continue reading
Cyber security in the European Union
As modern economies have embraced information and communication technologies, they have become vulnerable to cyber attacks. Such attacks are mounted by a wide variety of actors, some state-affiliated or enjoying state support. The methods and tools used are however largely the same. Cyberspace is an open environment, which poses a serious challenge to policy-makers. Its … Continue reading
Enhancing the mobile broadband capacity in Europe
There are two recent trends which are expected to much impact the digital economy in the years to come: on the one hand, mobile broadband traffic continues increasing fast and different forecasts agree on the fact that it is expected to increase dramatically thanks to the popularity of smart phones and tablets. For instance, global mobile traffic … Continue reading
Towards a European single market for telecoms
The telecommunications sector is crucial to the entire economy of the EU. Since 2009, despite constant growth in demand for data services, its revenues have been declining. Despite having an early lead, European telecoms lag behind international competition with regards to investment and deployment of modern infrastructure. Even though legal obstacles to liberalisation were removed … Continue reading
Deploying ultra fast broadband
The Digital Agenda for Europe has set up ambitious targets to boost ultra-fast broadband penetration in Europe: by 2020, there should be access to speeds of above 30 Mbps for all Europeans (currently at 54%) and subscription of Internet connection above 100 Mbps for 50% or more of European households. However, the latest measurement shows that this is still far … Continue reading
A roaming-free Europe in 2015
Updated on 8 November 2013 The issue of roaming has been the subject of three regulations since 2007: The first one was Regulation (EC) No 717/2007, which introduced the first caps for voice calls (i.e. the “Eurotariff) and set a number of transparency provisions to help to ensure that consumers were well informed. A second regulation from 2009, Regulation … Continue reading
