ETNO visits Washington DC, supports EU-US dialogue

Brussels, 25 July 2022 - A delegation from the ETNO Secretariat and Executive Board has attended the Transatlantic Policy Network week in Washington DC (18-21 July).

Czech Presidency of the EU: a view from telecom operators

20 July, 2022

By Lise Fuhr, Director General, ETNO

ETNO and UNI Europa ICTS consolidate the findings of the 2-year social dialogue projecton Digital Upskilling for All

Brussels, 19 July 2022 - The European social partners for the telecommunications sector – UNI Europa ICTS, the European trade union federation for service workers, and ETNO, the European Telecommunication Network Operators’ Association, have concluded the two-year social dialogue project called “Digital Upskilling for All!” (DUFA!).

Joint EU and National telecom sector statement on “fair contribution”

Brussels, 18 July 2022 – EU and national associations AOMR (RO), APMS (CZ), AssoTelecomunicazioni (IT), ATI (BG), DigitalES (SP), ETNO (EU), Fédération Française des Télécoms (FR), and the GSMA Europe (EU) released the following Joint Statement at the start of the Czech Presidency of the EU:

Telecom Industry Applauds EU Institutions for New Platform Rulebooks

The European telecommunications industry welcomes the European Parliament’s adoption of the Digital Services Act (DSA) and the Digital Markets Act (DMA), resulting from the co-legislators’ provisional agreements earlier this year. Today’s vote confirms Europe’s political commitment and vision to shape the societal and economic dynamics of digital platform ecosystems in line with its value system.

8 common questions on the “fair contribution” debate

By Maarit Palovirta, Senior Director Regulatory Affairs, ETNO

Since the publication of the EU Digital Decade principles in January, a lively debate has been developing on whether tech giants are contributing enough to the network costs they generate. This is very relevant to the achievement of the EU Digital Decade targets, which foresee full 5G and gigabit coverage by 2030.

In this context, policymakers and stakeholders have spoken up in the media, public debates and ETNO has published a report by Axon Partners on the EU Internet Ecosystem. As the debate continues, I would like to address what we see at the top eight questions being raised in the exchanges with stakeholders. This is our contribution, from a telecoms standpoint, to clarify what the “fair contribution” concept is and is not about.

Surge in inflation requires adjustments in WACC estimates for telco regulation

The weighted average cost of capital (WACC) is a key parameter in regulatory cost control procedures and thus for setting prices for legacy services (copper). With surging inflation operators will be faced with increasing interest rates leading to increased cost of capital. However, due to backward looking provisions of the European Commission “WACC-Notice” of 2019, National Regulatory Authorities (NRA) would be forced to decrease their regulatory WACC. We would like to stress that this paper only concerns WACC, but in addition, inflation has an impact on other underlying wholesale costs which are not captured by WACC (e.g. OPEX related costs).

Europe’s Digital Decade plans, gigabit networks roll-out and the fair contribution debate

Brussels, 19 May 2022 –Europe has set very ambitious connectivity targets and aims at connecting all Europeans to 5G and fibre networks by 2030. In order to achieve such targets, the EU must accelerate the pace of roll-out and ensure that enough financial resources are available for to the telecom sector to do so.

Europe’s Internet ecosystem: A 72bn boost to GDP and 840k new jobs are within reach if gaps in network costs are tackled

Brussels, 2 May 2022 – Today, tech giants do not contribute a fair share to the deployment of telecom networks, while generating network-related costs of tens of billion euros. This weakens Europe’s capacity to swiftly achieve connectivity targets. Addressing this through policy action could unlock socio-economic benefits for Europe, including €72bn GDP growth, an additional 840k jobs in 2025 and cuts to CO₂ emissions.