Ofcom rules on 'cost-orientation' and leased lines

Interesting ruling on whether BT over-charged by £40m to competitors who lease its broadband backhaul.

Commission wins German 'regulatory holidays' case?

The Advocate General's Opinion of 23 April 2009 in C-424/07 Commission v. Germany analyzed by 'Contentandcarrier'.

Commission's 14th Implementation Report

Published yesterday: a full report, as well as individual Member State chapters.

Links to other sources

Here's more on BERT/GERT/IRG etc. and on ECTA's Regulatory Scorecard.

European Parliament caps roaming charges on mobile

Note that the caps are still very high prices and EP socialists tried to ensure lower caps by 2011. 

50cents a Megabyte for data is $500 for a Gigabyte, which is 1% of your monthly allowance on most fixed broadband. Yup, that's $50,000 a month if you used your laptop to access your total fixed broadband in France this month...

Euro Parliament second Reading vote 21-23 April?

It looks like the telecoms package will be considered just after Easter...

Some basic links on net neutrality

This ZDNet blog post describes briefly why some traffic management is necessary, as does this magisterial introduction by Prof. Ed Felten. Also note Prof. Rob Frieden explaining the common carriage debate and its application to Verizon's new product.

Net neutrality reading

For next week, read the Impact Assessment sections 5, 6,.4 and 9.2 and search for "Larouche" and "SSRN". He has a 2008 article that you should read, on net neutrality and European law options.

Deutsche Telekom 'regulatory holiday' for VDSL

The German regulator is being sued in the ECJ for giving DT a break from competition for the VDSL product- case pending after 2 years....it has history with DT in the ECJ, as in this margin squeeze case (undercharging its retail arm compared to competitors).

Herbert Ungerer on regulatory and competition challenges for broadband

Deputy Director General of DG Competition explains his perspective in a new article..

Impact Assessment document for EC on reforming regulatory package

The document is the Commission staff explanation of why they feel the 2002 package needs reforming and strengthening. You can search through it for the various [1] Directives, [2] net neutrality/Internet freedom and [3] regulatory agency reforms they feel are necessary.

European case law on telecommunications

The decisions are essentially a long list of victories for the EC over member states who failed to enforce correctly, but there's a 2007 publication and 2008 update, as well as a list of current infringement actions.

Two summaries of CAT decision on mobile termination

A good journalistic explanation and a more complete legal firm's analysis

Remaning seminars

Seminar 5: Mobile Networks and Network Remedies

[2008] CAT 12, 20 May 2008: Case(s): 1092/3/3/07 British Telecommunications plc v Office of Communications (Termination Rate Dispute) at http://www.catribunal.org.uk/238-1928/Judgment-%28Core-issues%29.html

Chapter 6. Authorisation and Licensing, Anne Flanagan

Sandbach, J. (2001) Levering open the local loop: shaping BT for competition 3 info 3 at 195-202

Cave, Martin (2002) Is LoopCo the answer? 4 info 4 at 25-31

Seminar 6: Broadband Regulation

Cadman, R. and Dineen, C. (2005) Broadband Access Markets in Europe: Why Regulation should Promote Competition at http://www.spcnetwork.co.uk/uploads/20040315_investment_paper.pdf

OfCom (2006) Next Generation Networks: Developing the regulatory framework, March, at http://www.ofcom.org.uk/consult/condocs/nxgnfc/statement/ngnstatement.pdf

Voice over IP and NGNs

Seminar 7: Network Neutrality

Chapter 12. Content Regulation: Broadcasting, Internet, Premium Rate Services , Nick Higham

Whitt, Rick (2005) Living on the Deep Edge: The Nature of Innovation, The Emerging Internet-Based Ecosystem, And Some Implications for U.S. Broadband Policy, mimeo presented at http://lgst.wharton.upenn.edu/cmcl/

Seminar 8: International and Comparative Telecoms Agencies

Drake, W. Chapter 5 in Marsden, C., ed. Regulating the Global Information Society (Routledge, 2000) Chapter 13. The National and International Regulatory Regimes, Ian Walden

Marcus, Scott (2005) Is the US dancing to a different drummer? 60 Communications et Strategies pp39-58

Naftel, Mark and Spiwak, Lawrence (2001) The Telecoms Trade War, Hart Publishing, http://www.phoenix-center.org/telindex.html

OECD (2006) DSTI/ICCP/TISP(2005)6/FINAL January 11: ‘Telecommunication Regulatory Institutional Structures And Responsibilities’ at http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/56/11/35954786.pdf

Seminar 9: Developing Countries, Technology Bypass and Universal Service

Chapter 15. Telecommunications Reform in Developing Countries

Local loop unbundling: terminology

Useful glossary available here, and Oftel 2001 direction here. The progress is found here and here.

WTO 10th anniversary seminar

To mark the decade since the Basic Agreement on Telecoms, the WTO held a seminar a year ago - particularly note Peter Cowhey's presentation at the bottom of the page.

13th Implementation report and ofcom broadband speed report

For next week, you will pick a major EU country - one of UK, Germany, Italy, France, Netherlands - and give a 5-minute slide presentation on their performance according to the 13th Implementation Report. 

For the UK, note the latest performance report on broadband speed, demonstrating that maxmum speeds drop off significantly in evening 'rush hour'.