European decisions - 28 May 2005

Europe:
Two recent EU Commission decisions are likely to change the European telecom landscape. The first one is the announcement of limited regulation on VOIP. Alain Van Gaever, the EU's head of regulation for VOIP, announced at the VON Europe Conference, that regulation is likely to concern access to emergency services as well as providing interconnection to other telecom networks. A very good news for competition and consumer choice.
The second decision concerns the switch-off of analog TV broadcasting. The EU Commission calls for switch over to digital broadcasting by 2012, and urged national authorities to speed up the move. In addition to better quality and increased choice, DTT will free between 30% and 50% of its current spectrum needed for analog broadcasting. It will also generate an annual market of some 20m digital TV sets, according to EU estimates.