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Rt. Hon. Barbara Roche - Former Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Small Firms (May 1997 - Dec 1998)EU Telecomms Liberalisation Event, |
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Implications of Telecomms Liberalisation Liberalisation of telecomms in Europe is a great opportunity for business and for consumers. It is not just an end in itself - but rather, it is about bringing the benefits of telecomms to a wider number of people and building the essential foundations of the Information Age. Benefits to SMEs: In the past, only big business could obtain sophisticated and low-price telecomms services - with private networks, they could side-step high prices for international calls and enhanced services. It is not often mentioned in debates on the subject, but liberalising telecomms will extend those benefits to small companies, in whom I have specific interest, given my responsibility in the UK Government. I know we all agree that SMEs' continued health is vital to the creation of jobs in Europe. Giving them the ability to do business using telecomms on the same terms as large companies is a major advance for helping SMEs compete, and to help them, in turn, stimulate employment. Benefits to consumers: Liberalisation will also allow individual consumers to get access to innovative services and lower prices, neither of which a monopoly may not have considered worthwhile - or desirable - to provide. In the UK, we have seen competition bring down prices considerably - 49% for a typical household connected to BT By making the telephone cheaper to use, competition has made it that much easier for lower -income households to connect to the telephone service and thus improve universal service (In the UK we have seen the level of telecomms penetration rise to 93% last year). I believe that, if we ensure effective competition and regulation throughout Europe, the changes we are seeing today should, before long, make it little or no more expensive for our citizens to call any other part of Europe than to make a local call. Implications for the Information Age Without the spur of competition, Europe would be unlikely to take full part in realisation of the Information Age. Charges for infrastructure and the level of sophistication in our networks in Europe at present compare unfavourably with those in the US and elsewhere. If it costs too much for providers of new services to obtain capacity, and if operators make their networks difficult to use, those new services and applications which we expect to appear in the next millennium will be developed elsewhere, and not in Europe- and may not even be available here. Thus, Europe needs to aim for the cheapest and best telecomms networks in the world if we are to make our mark in the Information Age. Making Europe work for the people Telecomms as a Tool for social inclusion: We want, above everything else, to use the UK Presidency to Make Europe work for the people. Telecoms liberalisation is a major part of this. After all, lower telephone charges matter to all of us . We urgently need to ensure that this blossoming of the information society is an inclusive, not exclusive, phenomenon. Communications and information technology are for bringing people together: It is very easy to forget in the detailed work on Directives and the arguments for and against a particular policy what communications and information technology are all about : They are about overcoming distance and providing access to computer-based information into any location, whether a moving car, a foreign country or at home. We can make these technologies work for, and bring great opportunities to, everyone in society, including the disadvantaged, the disabled and those living in remote areas. This chance must not be wasted. We need to give people the chance to grasp these opportunities to provide them with the skills they need through education and give them the opportunity to access networks easily and cheaply. Let me give you, as an example of this, what we have done in the UK: we have set up the 'IT for All programme', which raises public awareness of new information technologies, and encourages people to try them out for themselves. We very much welcome similar efforts to raise awareness by the Commission in its Stimulis programme. We must encourage everyone - especially those who do not own a computer, and did not imagine that the Information Society might have any relevance for them - to get involved, and share its benefits. Importance of independent regulators Telecomms liberalisation - and the price reductions which competition brings about - have been vital to the success of initiatives such as 'IT for All'. A supremely important element in the success of telecomms liberalisation is regulation. Member States have been encouraged to set up strong, independent regulators, many of whom are here today. The UK experience has been that an independent and highly competent regulator is vital to making the market work. OFTEL has played a major role in creating a dynamic market in the UK: -134 cable operator franchises have licences and can interconnect with BT. - Number portability has been introduced for all fixed operators. - 68 international facilities licences have been issued Vital role of Commission: Mere transposition of regulations are not enough - we must look to national regulators and the Commission to ensure that what has been agreed in Brussels is properly enforced, so that there is a single market in telecomms in reality, not just on paper. I look forward to us all cooperating to ensure that the European market brings the important economic and social benefits our citizens have every right to expect. I very much welcome the Commission's determination to ensure that the EU market really does take off from this month, and look forward to examining another report on implementation of the 1998 package in Member States at the February Telecomms Council. We look to the Commission to use its existing Treaty powers to ensure that Member States and national regulators carry out their obligations under Community law. This combination of devolved, detailed regulation at national level, with the monitoring and encouragement of the Commission, should, I believe, lay a solid foundation for achieving what we set out to do almost exactly 10 years ago, in the 1988 Green paper on EU Telecomms policy. More work to be done ... UMTS: But 1 January 1998 does not mark an end to Community involvement in telecomms. Among a number of other issues we will be dealing with in the UK Presidency, we look forward to the Council discussing action to encourage the early introduction of Third Generation mobile services. A common understanding on providing the frequencies and allowing roaming, to allow pan-European coverage based on a single standard, could make UMTS another European success story in the same way - or better - in which we have seen GSM become the effective world standard for digital mobile services. This means getting UMTS firmly embedded in Europe as quickly as possible, and building into our decisions a very clear vision for making the European standard attractive to the world as a whole. Digital signatures: A second piece of legislation on which we hope to make considerable progress in the Telecomms Council during the UK Presidency is the Directive on digital signatures. A European framework for digital signatures will be essential if we are to seize the opportunities presented by electronic commerce - opportunities which will mean more jobs and more growth for Europe. CONCLUSION Looking back to telecomms liberalisation, and forward to Information Age: We are today celebrating a great step forward, in the shape of the beginning of a single market in telecomms. But we are also looking forward to the challenges and opportunities of the Information Age - and how best to ensure that everybody has the chance to benefit. This will give new opportunities to business and consumers: We are looking towards is a market structure which will not, as some have feared, concentrate the balance of power in the hands of big business. Rather, it will unleash the creative strengths already present in incumbent operators, and which monopoly structures have hitherto held back, and it will unleash new ideas being brought to the market by new operators. This will make for a better and cheaper service for the individual user as well as for business. A key step in creating People's Europe: Indeed, creating a single competitive market in telecomms in Europe, can ensure that one of the cornerstones of a People's Europe, the ability to overcome the traditional barriers of geography and borders, will be available to a wider cross-section of our citizens and companies. It is an achievement we can all be proud of, and I would like to pay tribute to Commissioner Bangemann and Commissioner van Miert, Mel Read and Wim van Velzen, and all of their colleagues, in working so hard to bring it about. |
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Other speeches by Rt. Hon. Barbara Roche - Former Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Small Firms (May 1997 - Dec 1998)
(the following are available from the archive) |
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