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Executives from Worldcom, KPNQwest and Global Crossing have sent a letter to the European Commission asking the body to put pressure on former telecom monopolies.
In an open letter, which was addressed to European competition commissioner Mario Monti as well as the European information society commissioner Erkki Liikanen, the companies along with 10 other telecoms and industry bodies asked the EU regulatory authorities to devote "immediate attention" to the bottleneck preventing them from offering competitive Internet and other premium services.
The push comes only one week prior to the Commission's expected annual report on the implementation of its telecom-liberalisation drive, which began in 1998. However, the demand from the entrant telecoms is not for the passage of new laws but for the enforcement of existing regulations. The letter primarily asks the commission to use its "full weight and authority" to bring improvements in how former monopolies offer access to leased lines, the last mile connections owned by the old state owned telecoms that ISPs often use to connect to homes and businesses.
"It's worth mentioning that under European Law an operator with significant market power (SMP) has to provide these leased lines in a cost-oriented and non-discriminatory manner," Barney Lane director of EMEA interconnection policy for WorldCom told ElectricNews.Net. "It's absolutely essential that we have access to these lines," he added.
Lane explained that the newer European telecoms do have access to the lines in question but often they come at too high a price or the connections for new customers on the lines can take months to be activated. These circumstances, explained Lane, have made it extremely difficult for entrant telecoms to offer services at a competitive price. "The Eircoms and the BTs of this world have a monopoly and we can't access them [the leased lines] at a reasonable price."
Lane went on to say that WorldCom, and the other signatories in the letter, want local operators to implement the EU's 1997 Interconnection Directive and the consortium also wants local regulatory authorities to enforce the EU laws that have already been passed. France, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Italy and Ireland were all cited as states that had a particularly poor record of enforcing these directives.
Lane concluded by saying, "Early concerns were on voice services, but we have moved passed that now. Now it is about doing the full service for customers. The market has moved on." He continued, "Two years ago there was this belief that unbundling the local loop (LLU) could solve our problem, the trouble is it's not working so we still need to buy these leased lines...Clearly action need to be taken quickly."
For its part, the Commission has dropped hints that liberalisation is behind schedule and the European Parliament is currently in the midst of a debate on the outline of a new regulatory framework for telecom services. Additionally, in the past the Commission has made complaints similar to those of the entrant telecoms. The Commission is currently lobbying Parliament and individual EU governments to give it a stronger role and more powers in forcing EU telecom directives. However, for the moment it has little power to intervene on a national level.
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