Brussels, 20 April 2018: Transatel, the leading European Mobile Virtual Network Enabler and Aggregator with strong expertise in Machine-to-Machine connectivity and in the Internet of Things joins ECTA as a Full member.

Jacques Bonifay, Transatel CEO: “In the past few years, Transatel has known an important deployment of its activities, with a variety of subjects ranging from enabling MVNOs to enabling the Internet of Things, along with some ambitious projects in global machine-to-machine. The scope has also greatly evolved: from specifically European, we’re now launching projects in Japan, the US, and the whole of Europe. Such an important change of scale indicated the need to become a member of ECTA.”

Brussels, 12 March 2018: Last week, the European Commission issued a draft compromise proposal text on article 74 of the European Electronic Communications Code, which is being currently negotiated between the Council and the European Parliament.

This article aims at setting down the rules for co-investment schemes between the telecom operator having significant market power (SMP) and other operators.

On several occasions, ECTA has previously flagged the potentially anti-competitive effects of this article.

The text now proposed by the European Commission in response to the Council’s inappropriate deregulation proposal exceeds our worst nightmares: Not only does the draft extend deregulation well beyond co-investment by including simple commercial offers, but its aim seems to be to establish an overall passport for regulatory holidays that will irrecoverably damage competition and hence investment.

With the proposal for a European Electronic Communications Code, the European Commission has expressed its ambition to rewrite EU regulation to enable the arrival of the Gigabit Society in Europe. This ambition covers both fixed and mobile networks and ties in with a strategic action plan for advancing 5G, the next generation of wireless technology in the EU.

Brussels, 29 January  2018:  AOTA (Association des Opérateurs Télécoms Alternatifs ) a French association  representing  commercial regional B2C and B2B internet service providers and operators became member of ECTA. 

"We are happy to join ECTA because we represent nearly 40 regional ISPs spread throughout France," says David Marciano, President of AOTA. "Our members are very active participants to digital development policies in our territories and it is important that our voice is heard also in the European digital market".

Brussels, 23 October 2017. Ahead of negotiations on rules to promote investment and thereby boost broadband connectivity in the EU, the Council deals a blow to regulatory independence in pursuit of better investment conditions. ECTA calls on the European Parliament and the European Commission to ensure that wilful political intervention in the work of national regulatory authorities (NRAs) be excluded under the future framework for electronic communications.

LETTER TO THE MEMBER STATES

Brussels, 10 October 2017            

 
Dear Prime Minister,

Dear Minister for Electronic Communications,

Dear Permanent Representative,

Why competition must not be traded off for investment:  
A plea for the future of electronic communications

Just a decade ago, digital mobility and Internet broadband access were far from being as widespread as they are today. And usage was even more limited. Indeed, it was around that time that talk of fibre-based networks first gained currency at EU level, in the context of the first review of the EU regulatory framework for electronic communications.

Brussels, 3 October 2017. Last night, the Industry and Research and Energy Committee (ITRE) of the European Parliament voted on its long-debated report on the proposal for a European Electronic Communications Code.

ECTA commends the improvements that the Committee has brought to the Commission text in the access and co-investment part of the report and welcomes the overall pro-competitive compromise reached between the different political groups.

Brussels, 26 September 2017. With the Access part of the consolidated Presidency text scheduled for final discussion in a Working Party on the 27^th of September, the negotiations on the European Electronic Communications Code are coming to an end in the Council. That cannot mean that competition finds its end as well.

In fact, ECTA believes that parts of the current Council proposal fail to preserve existing and future competition and hence harm investment incentives and innovation to the detriment of end users.

ECTA is most concerned about the weakening of the market analysis and significant market power part of the Code, through choices made on regulatory treatment of new network elements in Article 74 and on the obligations of price control and cost accounting obligations in Article 72.

Frankfurt, 15 September 2017 – As the global race for connected and automated driving gains pace, the European Automotive Telecom Alliance (EATA) met today with the European Commission at the Frankfurt Motor Show to announce the latest developments. Representatives from EATA presented the status of the dialogue between the car and telecoms industries with Günther Oettinger, European Commissioner for Budget, and with the newly-appointed European Commissioner for the Digital Economy and Society, Mariya Gabriel.

ECTA today reiterates that it supports the European Commission’s proposal to insert an objective of access to, and take-up of, very high capacity data connectivity in the draft European Electronic Communications Code, alongside the established policy objectives, and particularly the promotion of competition. At the same time, ECTA stresses that it also shares several of the concerns expressed by BEREC, the Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications, in a set of position papers on the draft Code (available here).