News

Telecom Industry Applauds EU Institutions for New Platform Rulebooks

The European telecommunications industry welcomes the European Parliament’s adoption of the Digital Services Act (DSA) and the Digital Markets Act (DMA), resulting from the co-legislators’ provisional agreements earlier this year. Today’s vote confirms Europe’s political commitment and vision to shape the societal and economic dynamics of digital platform ecosystems in line with its value system.

8 common questions on the “fair contribution” debate

By Maarit Palovirta, Senior Director Regulatory Affairs, ETNO
Since the publication of the EU Digital Decade principles in January, a lively debate has been developing on whether tech giants are contributing enough to the network costs they generate. This is very relevant to the achievement of the EU Digital Decade targets, which foresee full 5G and gigabit coverage by 2030.

Surge in inflation requires adjustments in WACC estimates for telco regulation

The weighted average cost of capital (WACC) is a key parameter in regulatory cost control procedures and thus for setting prices for legacy services (copper). With surging inflation operators will be faced with increasing interest rates leading to increased cost of capital. However, due to backward looking provisions of the European Commission “WACC-Notice” of 2019, National Regulatory Authorities (NRA) would be forced to decrease their regulatory WACC.

Europe’s Digital Decade plans, gigabit networks roll-out and the fair contribution debate

Brussels, 19 May 2022 –Europe has set very ambitious connectivity targets and aims at connecting all Europeans to 5G and fibre networks by 2030. In order to achieve such targets, the EU must accelerate the pace of roll-out and ensure that enough financial resources are available for to the telecom sector to do so.

Europe’s Internet ecosystem: A 72bn boost to GDP and 840k new jobs are within reach if gaps in network costs are tackled

Brussels, 2 May 2022 – Today, tech giants do not contribute a fair share to the deployment of telecom networks, while generating network-related costs of tens of billion euros. This weakens Europe’s capacity to swiftly achieve connectivity targets. Addressing this through policy action could unlock socio-economic benefits for Europe, including €72bn GDP growth, an additional 840k jobs in 2025 and cuts to CO₂ emissions.

ETNO supports EU-Ukraine Operators’ Statement on connectivity for Ukrainian refugees

Brussels, 8 April 2022 – ETNO, the Association representing Europe’s leading telecom operators, is proud to support today’s “Joint Statement by EU and Ukrainian Operators on connectivity in support of refugees from Ukraine”.

ETNO CEOs meet EVP Vestager

Brussels, 29.3.2022 – A group of CEOs from ETNO, the Association representing Europe’s leading telecom operators, has met today with European Commission Executive Vice-President Margrethe Vestager.

The meeting covered the following main areas: telecom contribution to European economy and society, including response to the Ukraine crisis; the issue of scale and competitiveness in European markets; the importance of removing barriers to the EU Single Market; and the sustainability of the telecom and internet ecosystems in Europe.