This collection contains papers of the

26th European Regional ITS Conference
San Lorenzo de El Escorial, Spain, 24th – 27th June 2015

"What next for European telecommunications?"

The conference aims to address issues that are highly relevant to Europe’s dynamic telecommunications market. One debate that has emerged within the European Union (EU) focuses on the structure and regulation of its telecommunications sector. The fragmented nature of the market, with 28 national markets and regulators, is preventing the emergence of the sort of telecommunications industry that the EU needs if it is to prosper in today’s global information based economy.
Operators lack the scale economies necessary to fund their investments in infrastructure or to develop new services and products. The national nature of markets complicates the regulatory process, and prevents the emergence of EU wide operators. But what should happen next? Should, for instance, the EU encourage through whatever measures necessary a single market in telecommunications? In such a single market, a new institution will have to be empowered to take over the role of national regulatory authorities at the European level. Consolidation, primarily in mobile but perhaps also in fixed, could result in larger operators able to fund the necessary investment. Though as operators consolidate, the long-standing mantra of the more operators the better, would be cast aside, requiring the emergence of a new form of regulatory intervention in telecommunication markets.
It is also unclear whether the creation of a single market would result in increased investment by operators. Arguably, there could be less infrastructure investment, at least in the short term, as operators acquire one another across Europe. This would delay the infrastructure investment sought, prolonging the digital divides that exist across the EU. Nor, for that matter, is it clear how the creation of a single market would encourage innovation in new services and products. Across the EU many national online markets are dominated by European versions of American websites, while a range of foreign manufacturers now dominate the handset market. And not only are OTT providers like Netflix having a disruptive impact on European content markets, but they are also highlighting the value of content over infrastructure that places further challenges on Europe’s telecommunications operators.