European deregulation
 

Hi - Just received a message requesting me to complain to EC

The accompanying email was the following (in Italian - but it mainly explains the content of the English message above - except that it adds that the decision would be taken to settle a dispute between two EC commissioners, Reding and Kroes):

More info in Italian are available on
http://www.key4biz.it/News/2007/11/1...Bruxelles.html

I am sending this post even before having made up my own mind - as a first reaction I would say that what it is probably correct that by deregulating the market, larger operators may be the ones that decide who can stay on the market and who cannot (I wonder: could this, for instance, be the end for international sim cards?).

?
 

1. I have no authoruty to speak for you EU folks.
2. I am relatively new to cell phones in US.

=====================================

How about listing PROs and CONs? Here are some possible points.

Cons:

1. Language barriers (although this could be overcome with language options on customer service menus)

2. Who likes change? NOBODY.

3. Consolidation may LESSEN competition and increase prices (small guys lose out).

4. What happens to MVNOs?

5. Will cause turmoil in market.




PRO:

1. Roaming MAY become cheaper (voice, data, SMS).

=====================

Don't claim these are either CORRECT or ALL-inclusive. PLEASE add or correct.

Stan

========================================

What do you mean by "larger operators"? "Multinational" ones like Voda, T-Mo, Orange or O2?
After all, they could "block" international sim cards even now but it's a niche market after all - no real danger to them ;-). Moreover, international sim cards except for Travelsim and the latest UK products like Xfone or VoiceSIM are basically non-EU ones...

That's so obvious that I'm surprised you even thought about language issues.

Define "change". E.g. I liked very much when mobile operators in my country changed debiting to 1/1 seconds :-).



Why - since you have just said that prices may increase? Because cross-border roaming connections will become on-net connections?

I think the real struggle is whether there will be a new pan-European regulator or not. Unsurprisingly, the national ones don't want it to happen, and want to keep the ERG instead.

As to language:

FACT 1: options are NOT YET IMPLEMENTED.
FACT 2. how will YOU feel if a pan-EU carrier DOES NOT OFFER Polish as an option?

As to change:

FACT 1: most people RESIST changes BY NATURE - who LIKES the untested, unknown?

As to price changes - you are correct. One can only speculate as to which way they would fall.

FURTHERMORE, I am not sure the North American market is a good example of what will happen after a consolidation. Most of US was and is on POST-PAY. I believe, but may be wrong, that most of EU is on PRE-PAY.

I would tend to agree with Andy..... the citizens' interests are not supreme here but rather the existing national regulators and companies. US customers were never asked if they wanted their Voicestream service to transfer to T-MO. Of course, if they did not like the deal T-MO gave them, they bailded out.

Seems to me the chances of a pan-EU solution are very slim at this time.

As noted, I may be wrong in every point. But you EU folks might want to debate it.

Stan

1. What options and where not implemented? I don't understand what you really mean....
2. Theoretically I would feel bad ;-) but it simply won't happen. Any telecom company which won't provide necessary Polish language support, will not make money here. It might be a niche offer at most.


It's about psychology/sociology - I have no knowledge to discuss this issue honestly.

<irony>Happily, despite the fear of changes, tight now we exchange our opinions over relatively quite new Internet instead of well known and tested smoke signs</irony>

Yes, I (or rather, the authors of the petition) definetely meant Vodafone etc.

It is true that international cards are still a niche and mostly non EU based (correct - as I said I hadn't thought about the implications yet). I would add that interconnection fees are mainly an issue for minor national operators. For MVNOs, as far as I know, in Italy the fees are freely negotiated between incumbent operator and virtual operator - so no competition issue involved there.

I guess that should the elimination be made, there might in the long term be a reduction of mobile operators in EU countries (from the current 3/4) - and for sure some serious difficulties for newcomers (maybe even VOIP companies?) - but these are just wild guesses.

They've press released their letter to the Commissioner Viviane Reding

http://erg.ec.europa.eu/doc/publicat...ing_letter.pdf

What I mean is....

1. Let's say the telcom scene in EU changes to the following:

4-6 big multi-nationals that have bought up/merged with MOST current national carriers. Voda, T-MO, O2 come to mind as pan_EU companies, but maybe others will come together. So, if you are a T-MO UK customer, you become a T-MO EU customer, etc. Instead of a NATIONAL customer care for UK, DE, etc., there is one consolidated customer care # for all T-MO EU customers. (A separate "Vociestream" USA customer care disappeared when it was bought up by T-MO). TRUE, a T-MO EU (or other biggie) may decide to leave customer care as a national entity tied to the old carrier. I would THINK that rationalization (cost-cutting) might play a role, however.

CURRENTLY, when you call T-MO DE customer care, you have to speak German and only German (at least when I was, there was no choice for English or other language on a menu -- TRUE, you could try your English or whatever with the person from T-MO, but a language selection menu was not implemented). I would EXPECT the same holds for T-MO UK except the language would be English, of course. And so on for each country where there is/was a national operator.

So, in the future, T-MO EU would have to implement a customer care system that would allow users to select the language they would wish to use with customer care. THAT system is not implemented because there is no T-MO EU of VODA-EU.

Can you envision a time when, say T-MO EU decides NOT to support every single European language, especially if its say Slovak-speaking customer base falls below a given #? They may have supported Slovak to start, but over time, the Slovak-speaking customers migrated to another carrier.

2. Brings us to 2. If all your national carriers on PL are "merged" into the biggies, you may not have a choice if or when one or more of those biggies decides to drop support for a given language. Not saying that will ever happen, but it might.

Stan

They can't just drop customer support on a language of a country where they provide service! Linguistic laws are very strict in the EU!

That's why, although I see pan-european carriers as something inevitable, I do think that the customer care part will remain on a country-by-country or language-by-language basis, as most customers actually use the service on the country of residence! What might be able to happen is for them to be able to connect you to your local language customer care center, and for local customer care centers to be able to have some kind of communication and co-operation with such centers in other countries for end-users to receive seamless customer support regardless of the country where their SIM is registered!

Stan, I don't think the one you mention is a major issue: you will probably have, when/if you will have T-MO EU of VODA EU, a smart system that identifies the caller and the country and consequently provides customer care in the relevant language. I honestly don't think we will ever get to a stage where customer cares won't be available in the native language: not only this would probably constitute a breach of the operator's duties in relation to the telecom license held (i.e. Italian Ministry of Communications requires customer care in Italian - apart from consumer law issues), but it would be commercially a suicide: right now if you buy some high tech product, you may end up with a customer care operator with a strong foreign accent (located in Ireland or somewhere else), but the language will nonetheless be the one of the country where you dialed the 0-800 number!

You may be right; I hope you are right.

I am only thinking of the situation here in the US where the government and major companies are "in bed together" and they break the laws, left and right.... Like allowing private phone conversations and emails to be recorded or monitored without COURT ORDERS (by the way this started BEFORE Sept 11, 2001) ..... and, then a law is passed retroactively to give the violators immunity.

Like where there is little, if any, untainted, unbiased news sources that report the truth and meaningful news.... And these conglomerates (Faux News, GE-TV, Disney, etc.) are allowed to grow larger and larger and squelch any competition.

Stan

I think things are getting a little OT here...

Hmm, somewhat I supposed that this your real fear - the size and resulting power of giant corporations. I admire your imagination about the possibility of not using Polish, Slovak or any other less popular languages by over-the-border companies but, as you have already been told, it doesn't seem to happen in the near future for many, already mentioned reasons.

As to the idea of the EU telecom regulator, I don't think if it is really necessary. Since it was possible to cut roaming rates without it, I hope another activities of that kind may proceed within the existing organisational structures...