Experience:

Orange is convinced that the long-term strategy for a Digital Single Market is a decisive pillar for Europe to regain its edge in ICT and digital development, but also to boost its growth in the highly competitive world we are living in.

We welcome the new Commission’s willingness to push for the adoption of targeted measures addressing essential issues and to fully unleash the potential of “digital” over the economy.

For an optimal impact, it’ll be necessary to approach the issue with a holistic strategy. As an introduction, Orange proposes here an overview of key challenges for a digitally-driven Europe and further describes in its manifesto for digital growth the way to take them up:

http://www.orange.com/en/content/download/27931/613725/version/3/file/ORANGE_Committed_to_Europe_ENG_spread.pdf

Ideas:

Embracing the digital revolution

While digital is increasingly present in Europe, one should have in mind that the rest of the world is also embracing these changes with speed and great commitment.

Europe should therefore seize the opportunity offered by the digital revolution to define an industrial policy capable of restoring growth, jobs and leadership.

Potentially all sectors will benefit from a pan-European digital strategy, with ICT technologies triggering transformation, competitiveness, innovation and growth. This digitalization is already opening new opportunities in the transport, energy and healthcare sectors to name but a few.

In this line, competition in digitalised industries will be increasingly innovation-driven and will require substantial investment, to be performed by dynamic but also more concentrated market structures.

Promoting and nurturing innovation

If Europe does not integrate innovation as the key economic factor, it risks being left behind in the race for progress and prosperity.

For a faster provision and adoption of new technologies, but also to help technology diffusion and the industrial scaling up of new activities and new businesses, European policies should support interoperability and standardization. They should also ensure that the innovation community can thrive in an open and collaborative ecosystem. This would support the development of an innovation virtuous circle that would provide richer opportunities for public research and innovation as well as boost private initiatives and investments.

More than for any other sectors of the economy, innovation is particularly vital for the ICT industry: the rapid adoption of innovative technologies is a core element of our business model.

Fostering take-up and investment in digital infrastructure

Indeed, the fast adoption of ICT technologies is also conditioned by the performances and cost efficiency of the underlying digital infrastructure, which are themselves ensured by continuous investments in new network technology upgrades and evolutions.

In addition, commercial flexibility and differentiation is essential to secure the case of new businesses.

It is now acknowledged that the regulatory framework that currently applies to such infrastructure in Europe is failing to produce the levels of investments required to support the development of a vibrant digital single market. This has to be simplified and modernized to incentivize investments, which should become a top priority in terms of objectives and when considering network infrastructure access regulation.

A major step in this modernization would also require the harmonization of the rules applicable to digital services: while a vast choice of services is now available to consumers, the latters are granted uneven levels of protection depending on who the provider is. This obsolete European framework needs to be replaced by a new one based on the “same services same rules” principle.

Achieving a high level of trust

No investment or innovation will succeed unless people trust the proposed digital services. In our view, a legal framework providing a consistent customer protection to EU citizens and defining clear rules based on responsibility, transparency and accountability, for all service providers serving European users, is a prerequisite. Moreover, consumer protection should be innovation friendly and not innovation adverse.

This trust needs to be addressed over a wide range of topics, from consumer concerns to privacy considerations and assurance of robust cybersecurity, in a context where issues are global and from any part of the value chain.

Privacy will be a particularly important point as it will also condition the uptake of innovative opportunities opened by the data driven economy, and will have to be fostered by the right balance between policy making and consumer empowerment.

For more contributions on Orange’s commitment to the European digital strategy, please keep checking our inputs under the ‘ideas’ and ‘evidence’ sections of the portal.

To learn more about Orange’s commitment: http://www.orange.com/en/about/European-Union/committed-to-Europe