End user perspective: BEREC Guidelines on Transparency in the scope of Net Neutrality

The previous blog post referred to the scope and structure of the transparency guidelines approved for publication by the Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications (BEREC):

BEREC Guidelines on Transparency in the scope of Net Neutrality: Best practices and recommended approaches BoR (11) 67 (December 2011; 69 pages)

Chapter II promised to deal with requirements for a net neutrality transparency policy and states, as a general principle, that the end users’ perspective is paramount. The guidelines discuss how to best adapt a transparency policy to net neutrality-related issues, in particular by taking into account different types of end users and usages.


End user perspective

In Chapter II the guidelines discuss major requirements for a net neutrality transparency policy, identifying a set of criteria (page 14):

A fully effective transparency policy (which can be composed of various approaches and measures) should aim at satisfying all of the following characteristics:

- Accessibility
- Understandability
- Meaningfulness
- Comparability
- Accuracy

These criteria are then explained.


Horse's mouth or third party?

The guidelines discuss two approaches to providing end users with information. The direct approach means that the Internet Service Provider offers the user information directly. This route is compulsory.

The complementary, indirect approach means that third parties – such as technical experts in the Internet community, price comparison sites , content providers or NRAs - provide information.

The NRAs have to devise the obligations of the service providers in a proportionate manner, bearing in mind the costs of regulation. Proportionality is discussed on pages 19-20.


Offer and limits

Discussing various aspects of transparency, the guidelines conclude (page 24):

Finding: for net neutrality transparency, information is needed on both the general scope of the offer and on the limitations (general and specific) of the offer.

Traffic management

Chapter II ends with the following finding (page 26):

Finding: Common terms of references about aspects of the Internet access service, including where some agreement can be reached on traffic management measures considered reasonable, can help to make the transparent information to end users simpler, and therefore can make a transparency policy more effective.

Ralf Grahn

BEREC consultation on draft Guidelines on Net Neutrality and Transparency

At the political level the European Parliament, the EU Council and the Commission (Digital Agenda, Digital Single Market) have all been active on net neutrality issues recently. Closer to the ”factory floor”, the Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications (BEREC) tries to find common ground among some 35 national eCommunications regulators, aspect by aspect.


Draft guidelines

This autumn the Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications (BEREC) published:

Draft BEREC Guidelines on Net Neutrality and Transparency: Best practices and recommended approaches BoR (11) 44 (October 2011; 64 pages)


Transparency and net neutrality consultation

BEREC launched a public consultation on 3 October 2011 (the announcement provided informationa about related net neutrality issues, but did not contain the end date of the consultation). The deadline, 2 November 2011, did appear on the News page.

Stakeholders, including individuals, delivered 77 contributions, available on the consultations page.


Board of Regulators

The Board of Regulators (BoR) 8-9 December 2011 gave its broad support to the documents submitted for approval. The BoR approved the Guidelines on transparency and the report from the public consultation for publication. The two documents:

Draft report on the contributions received during the public consultation on the draft Guidelines on transparency as a tool to achieve net neutrality BoR (11) 66

Revised draft Guidelines on transparency in the scope of net neutrality: best practices and recommended approaches BoR (11) 67


Consultation report

In other words, the report about the public consultation has been published:

BEREC report on the public consultation on the draft BEREC Guidelines on Transparency in the scope of Net Neutrality BoR (11) 66 (December 2011; 15 pages)

With a variety of respondents from different backgrounds, the contributions contain a number of approaches and opinions on the best manner to proceed regarding many issues.

Thus, the consultation report mainly provides a general summary of various opinions, without delving into specific contributions. Recommended reading for people interested in net neutrality issues.

One outcome is worth mentioning in order to link the draft guidelines with the final version (page 15):

Since the received general comments on net neutrality were very numerous and extensive, it was decided in particular to change the title of the document to “BEREC Guidelines on Transparency in the scope of Net Neutrality: Best practices and recommended approaches”, to better reflect the intended scope of the guidelines and avoid any further confusion in this respect.

Approved guidelines

The guidelines approved for publication by the BEREC Board of Regulators (BoR):

BEREC Guidelines on Transparency in the scope of Net Neutrality: Best practices and recommended approaches BoR (11) 67 (December 2011; 69 pages)



Ralf Grahn

eCommunications: BEREC Work Programme 2012

The blog post What is the EU doing for growth and jobs? presented the main economic reform programmes in the European Union. The entry Electronic communications in EU: BEREC blog posts focused on one part of the ongoing work on the Digital Agenda and the Digital Single Market, by compiling recent articles about the Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications (BEREC).


BEREC Work Programme 2012 documents

The public process started with the draft Work Programme BoR (11) 40 Rev1 (October 2011; 16 pages).

After the public consultation from 6 October to 4 November 2011, including an oral hearing 21 October, BEREC published a report on the public consultation BoR (11) 61 (9 December 2011; 15 pages). The contributions from fifteen interested parties are available on the BEREC page for public consultations.

I presented the consultation procedure and the consultation report.

The BEREC Board of Regulators, meeting in Bucharest (Romania) 8-9 December 2011, decided to publish the consultation report and the adopted WP 2012:

Work Programme 2012 BEREC Board of Regulators BoR (11) 62 (9 December 2011; 18 pages)


BEREC Work Programme 2012

BEREC noted that the Digital Agenda complements the objectives of the revised 2009 regulatory framework for eCommunications and welcomed the goals and ambitions set out therein (page 3).

BEREC contributes to the development and better functioning of the internal market for electronic communications networks and services by aiming to ensure a consistent application of the EU regulatory framework for electronic communications (page 4).

The Work Programme 2012 discusses BEREC's key objectives and planned actions with regard to (pages 5-11):

* Framework Directive Article 7/7a procedures
* International roaming (including the reforms proposed by the Commission)
* Universal service provisions (including the recent review communication from the Commission)
* Consumer empowerment (including transparent pricing and broadband speeds)
* Network neutrality (with key issues: transparency, minimum service requirements, discrimination, IP interconnection)
* Next generation networks (NGN) and access (NGA)
* Evaluation of BEREC and its office


Further topics are presented from page 11. They include (although I have not respected the difference between levels of headlines):

* Consistency of remedies and further developments
* Review and update of BEREC Common Positions (CPs)
* Implementation of key remedies
* Non-discrimination
* Regulatory accounting
* Implementation of recommendations
* Recommendation on termination rates
* Benchmarks
* Promotion of broadband
* Access to special rate services
* Cross-border and demand side related issues
* Business services
* Cooperation with RSPG and ENISA
* International cooperation


The BEREC Work Programme 2012 offers clear information about the ongoing and future activities, but leaving scope for queries from the EU institutions.

Nit-picking: BEREC is a body for cooperation between national regulators and its other stakeholders are mainly expert market participants. Still, even among them, far from everyone is a walking dictionary of English acronyms. BEREC could afford the luxury to explain each abbreviation at least when it first appears.



Ralf Grahn

EU Digital Agenda: member state and market basics eCommunications

Telecoms networks and services are sorted under the Commission's Information Society web pages eCommunications. There the web page 15th Progress report on the single european electronic communications market - 2009 offers you access to the communication COM(2010) 253 in 22 EU languages, as well as to the two parts of the accompanying Commission staff working document SEC(2010) 630 final/2 with much more detail (English only), including the Country chapters (Annex 1 in Part 1 or separately).

After the pan-EU developments presented in the blog posts about Part 1 (latest post), we glance at Part 2:

CORRIGENDUM
Annule et remplace le document SEC(2010) 630 final du 25.5.2010

COMMISSION STAFF WORKING DOCUMENT accompanying the COMMUNICATION FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT, THE COUNCIL, THE EUROPEAN ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL COMMITTEE AND THE COMMITTEE OF THE REGIONS: PROGRESS REPORT ON THE SINGLE EUROPEAN ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATIONS MARKET (15th REPORT); Brussels, 25.8.2010 SEC(2010) 630 final/2 PART 2 (128 pages)


Part 2 contains financial indicators, information about mobile markets, fixed markets, broadband markets, converged services (bundled offers), broadcasting, tariffs for leased lines, as well as exchange rates and population.

As with the implementation in the member states in Part 1, we are content to signal Part 2 to those who are interested, since we are going to meet both EU member states and evolving market conditions in many future instances.



Ralf Grahn


P.S. Dear Readers, I am interested in national Digital Agendas (existing language versions), as well as information society plans and ICT actions in the member states of the European Union. If you know something, I am grateful if you can use the comment section or email me with relevant information.

EU Digital Agenda: Radio spectrum progress

After some basic economic and market trends, broadband and regulatory developments as they appeared at the time of the Digital Agenda launch, we return to the Commission staff working document SEC(2010) 630 final/2, which accompanied the 15th progress report about telecoms (eCommunications) markets in Europe:

CORRIGENDUM
Annule et remplace le document SEC(2010) 630 final du 25.5.2010

COMMISSION STAFF WORKING DOCUMENT accompanying the COMMUNICATION PROGRESS REPORT ON THE SINGLE EUROPEAN ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATIONS MARKET (15th REPORT); Brussels, 25.8.2010 SEC(2010) 630 final/2 PART 1 (422 pages)

The working document continued by discussing various aspects of the consumer interest: users' access to the Internet and network management, number portability, out-of-court dispute resolution, the European emergency number 112, ”must carry” obligations and ePrivacy (page 61-70).


Radio spectrum management

The section on spectrum management reminds us of the digital dividend (page 73-74):

In 2009, the Commission stepped up efforts aimed at coordinating the allocation of the digital dividend – high-quality radio spectrum freed as a result of switch-over from analogue to digital television broadcasting – for innovative wireless communication services across Europe.

In 2009 EU member states took steps towards the introduction of market-based approaches in their spectrum management practices, the study records.

This reminds us of the fresh, 28 October 2011 press release about another forward step concerning a proposal we have discussed before: First radio spectrum policy programme: Political agreement between Council and Parliament (Council document 16072/11).

You can find background information through the Commission's information society web pages dedicated to the radio spectrum theme, including the latest news on approaching completion.


eCommunications infringement procedures

Monitoring and preventive work did not eliminate the need for infringement procedures (page 77):

Enforcing effective implementation of the regulatory framework for electronic communications continued to be a priority in 2009. The Commission opened some 170 infringement proceedings under Article 258 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) (formerly Article 226 of the EC Treaty) from the date of application of the regulatory framework until the end of 2009. In around 110 cases this was due to failures to correctly implement the regulatory framework. While all Member States have been concerned by enforcement action, a significant number of issues have been settled since.

You can find updated information about implementation and enforcement of existing eCommunications rules.



Ralf Grahn


P.S. Dear Readers, I am interested in national Digital Agendas (existing language versions), as well as information society plans and ICT actions in the member states of the European Union. If you know something, you can use the comment section or email me.

EU Digital Agenda: regulatory developments

We have looked at some basic economic and market trends, as well as broadband developments as they appeared at the time of the Digital Agenda launch.

We return to the Commission staff working document SEC(2010) 630 final/2, which accompanied the 15th progress report about telecoms (eCommunications) markets in Europe:

CORRIGENDUM
Annule et remplace le document SEC(2010) 630 final du 25.5.2010

COMMISSION STAFF WORKING DOCUMENT accompanying the COMMUNICATION PROGRESS REPORT ON THE SINGLE EUROPEAN ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATIONS MARKET (15th REPORT); Brussels, 25.8.2010 SEC(2010) 630 final/2 PART 1 (422 pages)

Since fixed telephony declines in terms of both revenues and volumes, I am just going to note the rapid rise of Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) telephony (page 34-36).


Telecoms regulation

The section about regulatory developments discussed the institutional framework, the implementation of regulatory measures, the consumer interest, horizontal regulation, spectrum management, as well as monitoring and enforcement.

Here are a few regulatory observations I found interesting enough to share with you.


NRAs

The EU member states have an obligation to ensure that the national regulatory authorities (NRAs) are legally distinct from and functionally independent of electronic communications networks and services providers, including state-owned ones.

One of the tasks of the Commission is to monitor the independence of NRAs, and it took action when necessary. Some of the critical issues were the institutional arrangements, the attribution of regulatory functions, the rules regarding the appointment and the dismissal of the regulator and the availability of adequate resources (staff, expertise and funding) (page 44-47).


Consumer protection

As the Commission said (page 55):

The requirement to provide transparent and up-to-date information on tariff plans, prices, and service terms and conditions is one of the fundamental pillars of EU consumer protection rules in the area of telecommunications.

Some innovative approaches were noted. One was the deployment of IT tools which allow end-users to test their actual broadband speeds. Online evaluation mechanisms enabling cost comparisons of alternative usage patterns were another transparency tool (both on page 56).


Universal service obligations

The Commission mentioned four elements of universal telecommunications services, which had to be available to all end-users at an affordable price and specified quality (Universal Service Directive 2002/22, here link to consolidated version of 19 December 2009). These were currently under review in many countries: (i) access at a fixed location to telephony services, fax communications and functional internet, (ii) comprehensive directory and directory enquiry service, (iii) availability of public payphones, and (iv) special measures for disabled, those on low income and with special needs (page 57).

Finland was the first country to take concrete measures to initiate a designation procedure for universal service broadband of 1 Mbps (page 57).



Ralf Grahn


P.S. Dear Readers, I am interested in national Digital Agendas (existing language versions), as well as information society plans and ICT actions in the member states of the European Union. If you know something, you can use the comment section or email me.

EU Digital Agenda: ICT markets and information society

The latest roundups of my blog posts in the trilingual series about EU and national information society strategies can be found in the entries Euroopan digitaalistrategia – kirjoitussarja FI SV EN and Digital Agenda: EU and national FI SV EN.

I commented briefly on one of the cornerstones of the Digital Agenda for Europe in the blog post EU electronic communications market(s) at Digital Agenda start.

This was the communication COM(2010) 253 final/3, which exists in 22 official EU languages, but the version in force seems to be the third revision. We went to the English pdf version of the 15th report:

CORRIGENDUM:
Annule et remplace le document COM(2010) 253 final du 25.5.2010
Concerne toutes les versions linguistiques

PROGRESS REPORT ON THE SINGLE EUROPEAN ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATIONS MARKET 2009 (15TH REPORT); Brussels, 25.8.2010 COM(2010) 253 final/3 (16 pages)


eCommunications

We saw that telecoms networks and services are sorted under the Commission's Information Society web pages eCommunications.

The web page 15th Progress report on the Single European Electronic Communications Market - 2009 offered us access to the communication COM(2010) 253 in 22 EU languages, as well as to the two parts of the accompanying Commission staff working document SEC(2010) 630 final/2 with much more detail (English only), including the Country chapters (Annex 1 in Part 1 or separately).


SEC(2010) 630 final/2

Relatively short communications often build on more detailed documents intended for specialists. In most cases they are available only in English.

In this case the accompanying Commission staff working document comes with a warning:

CORRIGENDUM
Annule et remplace le document SEC(2010) 630 final du 25.5.2010

COMMISSION STAFF WORKING DOCUMENT accompanying the COMMUNICATION
PROGRESS REPORT ON THE SINGLE EUROPEAN ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATIONS MARKET (15th REPORT); Brussels, 25.8.2010 SEC(2010) 630 final/2 PART 1

It is a hefty document - 422 pages. The first 79 pages are dedicated to an overview of market and economic developments, as well as regulatory developments, while Annex 1 from page 80 deals with implementation in the individual EU member states.

Let us take a look at some basic economic facts: revenues, investment, mobile market concentration, mobile communications and fixed broadband growth.


Revenues

An introductory paragraph on revenues offers us a picture of the economic importance of electronic communications and the European ICT sector in general (in 2008; page 4):

Revenues for the EU electronic communications sector were €351 billion in 2008 in the EU, which account for about half of the ICT sector overall. Seven of the ten largest telecoms operators in the world are European. 43% of the sector revenues are driven by fixed voice telephony and broadband (both business and private users), 47% are provided by mobile communications (voice and data), with the remaining 10% from Pay TV.

Investment

The financial and economic uncertainty and crisis curtailed investment in the telecoms sector in 2008 (page 5):

Investment by the EU electronic communication sector accounted for €47 billion in 2008, which represents a drop of 1.5% on 2007. Investment in the fixed market accounted for 70% of the total (incumbents are responsible for 70% of that figure) while the mobile sector was responsible for the remaining 30%.

In a majority of member states the commercial launch of LTE (Long Term Evolution) had been delayed until 2010-2011, with extensive deployment expected in 2013-2014 (page 6).


Mobile market concentration

The study noted that the top 10 mobile operators concentrate 90% of the market (page 7, footnote 10) and described the situation (page 7) in the mobile markets:

The four main groups are present in the majority of Member States (in the form of subsidiary, joint venture or commercial agreement) and they own the first and/or second largest mobile operator in almost all EU Member States (except in Denmark, Latvia and Finland). Most of the main mobile operators are subsidiaries of fixed incumbents. The only large European group which is not the subsidiary of a fixed incumbent has now entered the fixed market to complement its activities (in order to be able to supply convergent offers, e.g. quadrupleplay). While half of European operators are not part of these groups, these represent only 20% of the European market.

Mobile communications

The study noted that the approach to auctioning of spectrum licences had led to a national focus which had not yet translated into pan European services (page 7).

Mobile internet still drove only 4% of the total revenue with significant divergence across member states (page 8). However, the mobile broadband market was emerging rapidly.

Mobile voice penetration in the EU reached 121.9% and, as expected, its growth rate in 2009
had begun to stabilise (+2.5%) (page 10).


Fixed broadband

According to the study (page 19):

In January 2010 there were 123.7 million fixed broadband lines, up 9.3% since January 2009, and the EU average fixed broadband penetration rate reached 24.8%, up 2percentage points over one year.

Internationally, in 2009 the Netherlands and Denmark continued to have the highest broadband penetration rates, followed by Sweden, Finland and Luxembourg, which had penetration levels above 30% of the population, along with a group of four non-EU countries, Norway, Switzerland, Korea and Iceland (page 22).

***

Even if not sizzling hot, I found the economic facts and market trends quite interesting, both with regard to the European Union as a whole and concerning the huge differences between individual member states.



Ralf Grahn


P.S. Dear Readers, I am still interested in Digital Agendas (language versions), as well as information society plans and ICT actions in the member states of the European Union. If you know something, you can use the comment section or email me.

EU electronic communications market(s) at Digital Agenda start

I returned to the sources of the EU strategies for economic growth and the knowledge society in a number of blog posts published between 14 and 20 October 2011 (FI SV EN). Links are provided in the entry EU2020 and Digital Agenda roundup: innovative and competitive Europe?


Electronic communications market(s)

On 25 May 2010 the Commission published one of the cornerstones of the Europe 2020 strategy flagship initiative A Digital Agenda for Europe. This was a communication to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions about the state of the communications market(s) in Europe. At the time I noted the publication of the progress report and its findings of market fragmentation.

I added an entry about consumers facing roaming charges in real life, and another post about ambitious agendas and progress as proclaimed by the member states' governments.


COM(2010) 253 final/3

The communication exists in 22 official EU languages, but the version in force seems to be the third revision. We go to the English pdf version:

CORRIGENDUM:
Annule et remplace le document COM(2010) 253 final du 25.5.2010
Concerne toutes les versions linguistiques

PROGRESS REPORT ON THE SINGLE EUROPEAN ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATIONS MARKET 2009 (15TH REPORT); Brussels, 25.8.2010 COM(2010) 253 final/3 (16 pages)

The 15th report made it clear from the start that European consumers and businesses were not served well in one functioning single digital market, but ripped off in 27 different electronic communications markets (page 2):

Consumers and businesses are still faced with 27 different markets and are thus not able to take advantage of the economic potential of a single market.

At least, the progress report did not leave the Digital Agenda people without useful employment during the EU2020 decade.

Among other things, the communication discussed the independence and resources of national regulatory authorities (NRAs), legislation and regulatory activities concerning the migration from copper cables to fibre, mobile termination rates, radio spectrum management and mobile satellite services, as well as charges faced by consumers.

The Commission concluded by promising certain actions (page 16):

In line with the Digital Agenda and the measures it outlines on spectrum, universal service, the regulatory treatment of NGAs and privacy, the Commission will also take a number of targeted measures:

(1) to address the divergences in regulatory approaches and the lack of timely and effective enforcement of remedies;

(2) to lay solid foundations for a correct and timely implementation of the revised regulatory framework and;

(3) to ensure an effectively functioning Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications (BEREC).

eCommunications

Telecoms networks and services are sorted under the Commission's Information Society web pages eCommunications. There the web page 15th Progress report on the single european electronic communications market - 2009 offers you access to the communication COM(2010) 253 in 22 EU languages, as well as to the two parts of the accompanying Commission staff working document SEC(2010) 630 final/2 with much more detail (English only), including the Country chapters (Annex 1 in Part 1 or separately).



Ralf Grahn