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FCC, EU Share Deregulation 'War Stories'
Liberalizing telecommunications regulations is a slow, difficult process, but with an information exchange and sharing of "best practices," Europe and the United States can move more efficiently toward deregulation, a top Federal Communications Commission (FCC) official said Monday.
As Europe embarks on an ambitious plan to establish regulations that would require the "unbundling of the local loop," or local telephone networks across Europe, FCC Commissioner Susan Ness traveled to Europe earlier this month to meet with telecom regulators in Brussels, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands. The informal meetings gave officials the chance to share some of the lessons they have learned and their "war stories" from the ongoing telecommunications deregulation process on both sides of the Atlantic.
"We routinely have bilateral meetings with the European Commission, " Ness explained in an interview with Technology Daily. "As the international commission, it's vitally important for us to maintain the information exchange. We are all going through what is uncharted environments, moving from a monopolistic environment to a competitive environment."
Plenty To Talk About
Ness said she was able to communicate issues that have presented challenges to the FCC. For example, she mentioned the issues surrounding collocation — or giving competing phone companies access to the established phone network without posing an undue burden on incumbent telecom carries.
Ness and several FCC staff members discussed better means of achieving "spectral efficiency" in how regulators distribute wireless spectrum. And with recent controversies surrounding pricey spectrum auctions across Europe, regulators discussed possible ways of restructuring auctions.
Ness also met with regulators from the United Kingdom's Office of Telecommunications (Oftel). She and Oftel officials exchanged information on the progress of unbundling the local networks.
Recently, Oftel has been subject to criticism for not moving fast enough to open its network to competition. U.S.-based RSL Communications, which was aiming to provide high-speed Net access throughout Europe, criticized Oftel for its failure to reduce the size of former government-owned British Telecommunication in the local networks.
Barry Mowbray, managing director of RSL in the United Kingdom, told The Financial Times earlier this year that "Oftel had the chance to create real competition to BT in the local exchanges, but it wasted the opportunity."
But the purpose of FCC officials' visit was as much to offer moral support to their counterparts as it was to exchange information. "I am always interested to see how competition is developing; what are the major stumbling blocks," Ness said. In this process, she added, "no one has the right answer ... because the circumstances are different. To some extent ... just thinking out loud on some of these issues is helpful."
Different Telecom Worlds
While the firm push to open telecom networks in Europe rapidly progresses toward its Jan. 1, 2001 deadline, Ness said it presents no pressure for the U.S. market to catch up. The 1996 Telecommunications Act promised to deregulate local domestic networks, but progress toward that goal has been much slower than U.S. policymakers initially had hoped. "The situations are so very, very different. The marketplace looks very different," Ness said.
Due to court challenges, she explained, the move toward deregulation in the United States was stymied for the first two years after passage of the law. "That caused us a significant delay," she said.
"We have millions of [local] lines that are now in the hands of competing carriers," she added. "We're moving, but it ain't easy."
In other news, Oftel's operations director announced during a meeting last Friday that the regulatory authority had set a timetable for competitors to install equipment to begin offering services to rival incumbent carriers.
"BT has agreed that unbundled loops will be available at no less than 600 of its exchanges by 1 July, assuming that it receives suitable orders. There will be a mix of co-location rooms inside the exchange building and sites in nearby buildings," Ann Lambert, operations director at Oftel, said in a statement. "After July, BT expects to be able to prepare 200 such facilities per month shared equally between exchange rooms and nearby building facilities."
EU looks to Hammer Out Online Financial Services Issues
In trying to achieve its goal for a single payment region, European Commission officials last week pledged to "take necessary action" to ensure the success of the "euro."
Representatives of the financial-services sector met with commission officials, members of the European Parliament and the European Central Bank to resolve ways to use technology in cross-border payment systems.
"It's part of what we call the financial action plan put forward last year by the commission and endorsed at the Lisbon summit earlier this year," explained Gerard de Graaf, first secretary for trade for the commission's Washington delegation.
Commission officials currently are studying how electronic payment methods would affect cross-border credit transfers and payments. De Graaf said the commission is composing a green paper on the issues of electronic financial services and seeking input from EU member states. Later this month, economic and financial ministers from EU member states will discuss how to protect consumers amidst the growth of online transactions and electronic smart cards.
Let Them Have Web Seals
The Australian Senate information technologies panel is recommending that the nation's federal privacy commissioner develop a system to flag Web sites pledging to protect consumer privacy, the Sydney Morning Herald reported Monday. A new report produced by the committee found that proposed privacy legislation does not necessarily meet global standards.
The proposed privacy laws before Parliament, the report notes, fails to consider new technologies and how they may compromise citizen privacy. "With this report, the committee recommends a technology-savvy approach to protecting privacy," the report says.
"Working within the established legal and policy frameworks, the committee's recommendations empower consumers to handle privacy threats where, because of the borderless nature of the Internet, governments alone are unable to provide comprehensive safeguards. The privacy Web seal will provide a market advantage to business and therefore an incentive to embrace privacy as part of its e-commerce strategy."
Japan Looking For Ways To Address Software Patents
Japan's patent office has started examining new ways of patenting software to ensure copyright protections for programmers in light of the proliferation of electronic distribution, Nihon Keizai Shimbun reported on Monday.
Current Japanese law does not allow software to be patented, but it safeguards the means of accessing software through disks or CD-ROMs. The country's patent office has sought input from industry sources and academics on a new system for software patents as early as next year.
A Setback For Regional Domain Names
If constituencies of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) have any sway, plans to introduce regional domain names such as .eu and .africa may be shelved.
Stakeholders and members of ICANN's country top-level domain constituency (TLD) voted unanimously to oppose to the approval of regional domain names. Ultimately, ICANN's board of directors will decide the issue. But the process for introducing new TLDs requires consensus from various constituencies.
ICANN adopted a resolution that would allow for the delegation of the .eu TLD as long as regional TLD applications match the requirements for technical feasibility and secure a proper registry to administer the new domains. Commissioner for Information Society Erkki Liikanen has said the creation of .eu would help Europe's e-commerce prospects. The TLD ball currently is in the EU court; it must submit a complete application to ICANN.
- by Maureen Sirhal
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