People can now reach emergency services from anywhere in the EU, simply by dialling 112, the single European emergency number. Now that 112 can be called from any phone in Bulgaria, it has achieved complete availability just before the Christmas period when thousands of people travel between EU Member States to visit family, hit the slopes or look for winter sun. It also crowns the combined efforts of the European Commission and EU Member States to make 112 fully available everywhere so that Europeans will always have a lifeline in the EU.

The European Commission has today taken a decisive step towards the promotion of competitive Mobile TV services in the EU. It has published a set of guidelines for the authorisation of Mobile TV to accelerate roll-out of the service across Europe. Mobile TV revenues worldwide are expected to reach more than €7.8 billion in 2013. The commercial services launched before summer 2008 in some European countries show that there is an increasing consumer demand: in the Netherlands alone, 10 000 users had already subscribed to the service at the beginning of autumn. Authorisations from Member States for Mobile TV services are needed before any commercial launches by operators. Along with the addition of the DVB-H standard to the EU list of official standards in March 2008 (IP/08/451), these guidelines underline the Commission's strong commitment to the promotion of new services for European consumers.

The European Commission, in a letter made public today, requested the German telecoms regulator, Bundesnetzagentur ("BNetzA"), to notify it of all German mobile operators' termination rates, the wholesale tariffs charged by the operator of a customer receiving a phone call to the operator of the caller's network. Mobile termination rates are relatively high in Germany compared to several other Member States. The Commission underlines that these rates need to be notified to it under the EU telecoms rules ("Article 7 procedure"). This procedure, provided for by the European Parliament and the EU Council of Ministers since 2002, aims to ensure more coherent and transparent termination rates across Europe, thereby avoiding distortions of competition between operators from different Member States. BNetzA has failed twice, in 2006 and now again, to include these rates in its analysis of the market for wholesale mobile call termination. In its letter, the Commission therefore alerts BNetzA that in case it continues to fail to comply with this obligation, the Commission, as guardian of the Treaties, will consider opening an infringement proceeding for non-compliance with EU legislation.

Following the Telecoms Council's deliberations this afternoon, Viviane Reding, the EU Telecoms Commissioner, commented on the Roaming II Agreement: "I welcome the Council of Telecoms Ministers' early endorsement of the Commission's proposal to reduce consumer charges for sending text messages and downloading data via their mobile phones while abroad. This shows that where there is a common will, there is a swift EU way for action in the telecoms sector. Thanks to the diplomatic efforts of the French Presidency, namely of Secretary of State Luc Chatel, Ministers have answered the Commission's call for a speedy response to the SMS and data roaming rip-off very positively. I look forward to discussing with the European Parliament – which is co-deciding on the new roaming rules with the Council – how best to protect European businessmen, tourists, students and other travellers from excessive SMS and data roaming charges. I am confident that with Parliament we will ensure that consumers travelling in the EU will save money when sending texts and surfing the web with a mobile phone as of 1 July 2009. This would send a clear message of consensus that the EU's single market is there to serve European citizens as well as businesses."

Following the Telecoms Council's deliberations this morning, Viviane Reding, the EU Telecoms Commissioner, commented on the Council's results for the EU Telecoms Reform as follows: "There was a constructive crisis this morning at the Council meeting, as several delegations felt that the Council text agreed so far was not ambitious enough. I applaud Secretary of State Luc Chatel for having resolved this crisis with skill and a pro-European intention. The new text now agreed by Ministers is an improvement compared with the initial text of this morning, even though I continue to believe that Europe's telecoms sector requires better rules than those now on the table here. Nevertheless, the new Council text is a basis now for the negotiations between Council and the European Parliament, which codecides on the EU-Telecoms Reform. However, if we want to reach an agreement under this Parliament, all three institutions – Parliament, Council and Commission – must sit down together without delay and get down to work on a common approach. Europe has no time to lose: our operators need a single market for telecoms; our rich spectrum resources need to be managed more effectively in the interests of our economy and the goal of 'broadband for all' – especially in these difficult economic times; and European consumers should have a clear bill of rights. I therefore ask the French Presidency to call a meeting of the three institutions early in December. Only this can pave the way for a second reading agreement in spring 2009."

The Commission today, in a letter, welcomed the French regulator's proposal to bring the wholesale rates charged by French mobile operators closer towards the costs of an efficient operator. The proposed decision of ARCEP (Autorité de Régulation des Communications Electroniques et des Postes) is a very important step towards the elimination of price distortions between phone operators in France. The decision will lead to lower consumer prices for mobile calls while facilitating investment and innovation in the entire French telecoms sector. The Commission also invited ARCEP to keep up its efforts to reach truly cost oriented and symmetric mobile termination rates for all operators by setting a target date by which they should equal the costs of an efficient operator in the next regulatory window that starts in 2011.

The Council of EU Telecoms Ministers will meet in Brussels tomorrow, 27 November 2008. Two key telecoms dossiers are on the agenda: the new Roaming Regulation on SMS and Data Roaming – on which a "general approach" (the outline of a political agreement) is expected – and the reform of the EU's telecoms rules (last revised in 2002), where discussions continue to be difficult. The EU Telecoms Ministers will also adopt conclusions on the Future of the Internet and discuss what role the Universal Service could play in achieving "broadband for all". The Commission will be represented at the Council by Viviane Reding, EU Telecoms Commissioner.

Today, radio spectrum regulators from all 27 EU Member States and Commission experts met in Brussels in the framework of the Radio Spectrum Policy Group (RSPG) – an advisory group on radio spectrum set up by the Commission in 2002 – to discuss the spectrum policy priorities for 2009. After the meeting, Dániel Pataki, Head of the Hungarian Regulatory Authority, Chairman of the European Regulators Group and newly elected chairman of the RSPG, discussed his policy priorities with Commissioner Viviane Reding in a bilateral meeting, with a special focus on the strategic approach to the digital dividend and the "broadband for all" policy of the European Commission. On this basis, Dániel Pataki and Viviane Reding made the following joint statement:

In a letter dated 13 November 2008 the Commission has informed the Slovenian telecom watchdog, APEK, that at this stage it has serious doubts as to the finding of joint dominance in the Slovenian mobile access and call origination market. During the following two months the Commission will call for and assess further market data from APEK and market players.

In a high-level visit to Brussels today, Corrado Calabrò, the president of the Italian telecoms regulator AGCOM (Autorità per le Garanzie nelle Comunicazioni) offered important commitments to EU Telecoms Commissioner Viviane Reding to bring the regulation of mobile termination rates in Italy in line with European law and best European practice. If fully implemented, these commitments could end concerns of Commissioner Reding on the level and partial asymmetry of mobile termination rates in Italy. In a letter sent on Monday, the Commission had asked AGCOM to review its proposed price caps on mobile termination rates for Telecom Italia, Vodafone, WIND and H3G Italia which were considered not in line with the principles of cost orientation and effective competition. Already since some time, the Commission has observed a continued pattern of inconsistency in regulatory approaches on termination rates across the 27 Member States. These differences cannot be explained by different national circumstances alone, but by different costing models, benchmarks and glide paths chosen by national regulators. In June, the Commission had published a draft Recommendation on the regulatory treatment of fixed and mobile termination rates, which reiterates clear and consistent principles for national regulators on the relevant costs to be taken into account when they analyse their termination markets and set tariff obligations (IP/08/1016, MEMO/08/438). The commitments offered today by the Italian telecoms regulator take into account the approach recommended by the Commission, leaving open the potential for further steps towards cost-orientation once the approach is fully implemented.

The European Commission has informed the Spanish telecoms regulator, Comisión del Mercado de las Telecomunicaciones (CMT), that it has serious doubts that the draft measures on the Spanish wholesale broadband access market, notified under the Electronic Communications Framework Directive, are compatible with EU law. It is unprecedented that a national regulator proposes to regulate wholesale broadband access only up to a certain speed (30 Mb/s in this case). The CMT further proposes to impose less stringent regulation in areas where alternative infrastructure operators seem to be active. In the context of the transition towards high speed broadband in Spain, the Commission needs to ensure that the proposed measures do not hinder broadband competition and are supported by empirical evidence. The Commission now has two months (until 13 January 2009) to take a final decision on whether or not the regulator can adopt the proposed measures.

Today, the European Commission is publishing new legislative texts on the EU Telecoms Reform package to take account of the European Parliament vote of 24 September 2008 and the ongoing discussions in the Council. In November 2007, the Commission made proposals for the reform of the EU Telecoms rules, designed to create a Single EU Telecoms Market with improved rights for consumers and businesses, more competition and investment to boost the take-up of cross-border services and wireless high-speed broadband for all. The new texts presented by the Commission today will be discussed in the Council of Telecoms Ministers on 27 November. At the heart of the compromise texts is a new, small and independent office for Europe's telecoms regulators that should help the Commission to bring about more consistency to regulatory measures on Europe's telecoms markets. The new regulatory framework is expected to become law in all 27 EU Member States by 2010.

The lack of effective competition and high tariffs in the Belgian markets for fixed voice calls could result from an ineffective implementation of telecoms regulation. Measures taken by the Belgian telecoms regulator, the 'Institut Belge des services postaux et des télécommunications' (BIPT), have not yet led to competitive prices for fixed line calls. In a letter made public today, the European Commission invites BIPT to ensure that wholesale remedies are properly enforced and asks for a new market analysis to be carried out within one year. BIPT should also revise its price control obligation imposed on Belgacom, the telecoms incumbent, to allow Belgian customers to make cheaper calls as soon as possible.

In today’s round of telecoms infringement proceedings, the European Commission closed the case against France over the designation of universal service providers, following changes to French rules. EU rules under the Universal Service Directive provide a safety net guaranteeing a minimum level of services such as connection to a telephone network and basic internet access that fill societal needs not delivered by the market. The Commission launched a case against France in 2005 because its procedure for designating providers of the universal service was only open to operators offering nationwide services. EU rules say that the process should not discriminate against any operator interested in providing the service only in parts of a country. France amended its rules after the European Court of Justice ruled in favour of the Commission in June 2008. These amendments will ensure that no telecoms provider interested in providing the universal service in parts of the country will be excluded from a designation process in advance.

On 16 October the European Commission closed an infringement case against Poland for the lack of availability of caller location after the Polish authorities confirmed that it has been available for calls to the European emergency number 112 since 30 June. Under EU rules, Member States must ensure that operators provide emergency centres with the location of people calling 112 from fixed or mobile phones. This makes it much easier to respond to accidents and emergencies, especially as a survey earlier this year showed that only 53% of Europeans travelling abroad are able to provide the exact location of emergencies when they call 112 (IP/08/198). The case was opened in 2006 because caller location information was not available for 112 calls made from mobile phones.

The Commission decided on 15 October to reduce administrative demands on national telecoms regulators when submitting draft regulatory measures to the Commission. Since 2003, the Commission has reviewed more than 800 national regulators' decisions to break traditional telecoms monopolies and open up networks for competitors. Today, the Commission adopted a new Recommendation on procedural rules for the EU-wide consultation mechanism, also known as 'the Article 7 procedure', that allows national regulators to use a simplified and shortened standard form to notify the Commission of certain decisions. This will considerably simplify and speed up the EU consultation mechanism. To further streamline the process, the Recommendation also invites national regulators to submit their market analyses together with the proposed remedies instead of separately, as it is already best practice in most EU Member States. These rules are another step towards a timelier implementation of regulatory measures and increased legal certainty for market players investing in the European telecoms sector, which ultimately benefits consumers.

Europe could take the lead in the next generation of the Internet. The European Commission today outlined the main steps that Europe has to take to respond to the next wave of the Information Revolution that will intensify in the coming years due to trends such as social networking, the decisive shift to on-line business services, nomadic services based on GPS and mobile TV and the growth of smart tags. The report shows that Europe is well placed to exploit these trends because of its policies to support open and pro-competitive telecom networks as well as privacy and security. A public consultation has been launched today by the Commission on the policy and private sector responses to these opportunities. The Commission report also unveils a new Broadband Performance Index (BPI) that compares national performance on key measures such as broadband speed, price, competition and coverage. Sweden and the Netherlands top this European broadband league, which complements the more traditional broadband penetration index used so far by telecoms regulators.

How can the EU achieve that all Europeans – from the North of Finland to the South of Italy, from the Western Ireland to Eastern Romania – have access to broadband Internet? This is the main question raised in a Commission report today. From 2003-2007 broadband use in the EU tripled to 36% of households. However, 7% of the EU's population are still not connected (30% in rural areas). There are striking gaps in the EU: 100% of the population is covered in Denmark, Luxembourg and Belgium, but more than 60% in Romania (75% in rural areas) do not have broadband access. Even in strong economies such as Italy and Germany, 18% and 12% respectively of the rural population are not covered. With broadband increasingly important in daily life, policy tools like radio spectrum management and mobile satellite services should accompany a broad debate about the universal service in telecoms – a safety net guaranteeing a minimum level of services, such as connection to a phone network and basic Internet access, filling basic needs that the market does not.

Today the European Parliament in its plenary session voted on the European Commission's proposals of November 2007 to reform the EU Telecom rules, in place since 2003. The EU Telecoms Reform aims to create a Single EU Telecoms Market with improved rights for consumers and businesses by reinforcing competition and investment and boosting the take-up of cross-border services and wireless high-speed broadband for all.

Mobile phone users can expect the cost of sending text messages from abroad in the EU to be much cheaper next summer. The European Commission today proposed to reduce the price of roaming text messages by 60% as of 1 July 2009. EU citizens travelling in other EU countries should pay no more than €0.11 per SMS compared to the current EU average of €0.29. The Commission also wants to improve transparency for surfing the web and downloading data on a mobile phone while abroad: consumers used to cheaper data services at home should be better protected against roaming "bill shocks" that can run to thousands of euro. The proposals will now be submitted to the European Parliament and Council, who must agree before they become law. The EU already reduced charges for making and receiving calls abroad (voice roaming) by 60% in summer 2007.