• Recently Written

  • “a joint burden laid upon us all”*: advocate general on universal service financing
  • “Confusion now hath made his masterpiece!”* Advocate general reprimands Council and Commission
  • “And yet my SKY shall not want”*: European General Court finds for Murdoch, orders Berlusconi’s Mediaset to repay state aid granted by Berlusconi’s government
  • “high respect and rich validity”* - ECJ: Roaming Regulation valid
  • “ever precise in promise-keeping”*?: open and vague ministerial promises do not constitute state aid

• Categories

  • communication technologies
  • competition/mergers/state aid
  • copyright
  • digital content
  • events / publications
  • fundamental rights
  • national regulatory authorities
  • public services
  • spectrum policy

• Archives

  • June 2010
  • May 2010
  • April 2010
  • March 2010
  • February 2010
  • January 2010
  • December 2009
  • July 2009
  • May 2009
  • April 2009
  • March 2009
  • February 2009
  • January 2009
  • December 2008
  • November 2008
  • October 2008
  • September 2008
  • August 2008
  • July 2008
  • June 2008
  • May 2008
  • April 2008
  • March 2008
  • February 2008
  • January 2008
  • December 2007
  • November 2007
  • October 2007
  • September 2007
  • August 2007
  • July 2007
  • June 2007
  • May 2007
  • April 2007

• Blogroll/Links

  • antitrustlawblog
  • antitrustprof
  • e-comm (in German)
  • Electronic Communications Regulation Update
  • Eoin O'Dell
  • informationoverlord
  • lexferenda
  • Media Law Prof Blog
  • MediaPal @ LSE
  • Net Neutrality in Europe
  • Online Journal on International Constitutional Law
  • professor geradin
  • telemedicus (in German)
  • Virtual Law @ LSE

• RSS-Feed

  

  • Admin

    • Login
    • Wordpress

“O truant Muse, what shall be thy amends”*: Reding’s Roaming Regulation, amended

Posted on September 24, 2008 | Filed Under communication technologies 

Yesterday, Commissioner Reding presented the key points of the Commission’s proposal to amend the Roaming Regulation; it took until today to also get a text of the proposal on the website, and it still is a “version provisoire”. But anyway, here are the links to the proposal, the accompanying staff working paper and the Communication on the outcome of the review of the functioning of the Roaming Regulation (all provisional versions).

As the explanatory memorandum says, the regulatory actions chosen are simple (”Due to the nature and the simplicity of the regulatory actions chosen in the proposal … the administrative and financial burden on the Community, national governments and authorities will be minimised.”):

• price limit (retail) for “Euro-SMS” 11 cents (4 cents wholesale for SMS-termination),
• wholesale price cap for data roaming: 1 € / MB, no price limit for retail
• automatic message for customers when they are roaming, including personalised tariff information, from 1 July 2010 additionally a “cut- off limit” (where customers can determine a “maximum financial limit” they are prepared to spend on roaming)
• the voice roaming regulation will be prolonged, with further reductions of retail and wholesale limits (retail active 0.40 € per 1 July 2010, 0.37 € per 1 July 2011, 0.34 € per 1 July 2012; retail passive 0.16€ / 0.13 € / 0.10 €; wholesale 0.23 € / 0.20 € / 0.17 €). For active calls, per-second billing will be mandatory after 30 seconds, for passive calls per-second billing is required right from the first second of the call.

The Commission backs up its proposal with a detailed staff working paper, coming up with a nice exercise in economic fortunetelling by analysing the welfare impact of the regulatory options. To sum it up: not much is known, and most of the rest is either assumed or disregarded (or “a first approximation of the virtually unknown”, here: concerning the characteristics of the functional form of the demand functions for international roaming, an example of the demand function for SMS-roaming is shown above). But still, miraculously, it all sums up nicely and the regulatory options chosen are exactly those that maximize overall welfare.

*) Shakespeare, Sonnet 101.

Comments