December 14th 2005
By: monica
The European Commission�s Christmas present to the media and communications sector is a proposal for a new Directive on the regulation of audiovisual media services. Along with it comes an Impact Assessment Document in an attempt to balance risks and benefits of the legislative initiative. The scope of the ...
December 14th 2005
By: monica
The European Regulators Group (which represents both National Regulatory Authorities �NRAs and the European Commission Services of DG Infosoc and DG Competition) has published for consultation a draft document which sets the common position of the ERG members regarding �Remedies� under the European regulatory framework for electronic communications.
Responses should be ...
December 13th 2005
By: Roger Darlington
As I mentioned in an earlier posting would be the case, proposals for a substantial review of the 1989 European Union Television Without Frontiers Directive were considered today by the College of Commissioners. The draft proposals have been published together with a media release from Commissioner Viviane Reding.
The Commission believes ...
December 12th 2005
By: Russ
Folks, some media and telecoms numbers out this week and last:
* The Office of the Telecoms Adjudicator reports that there are now 163000 unbundled local loops, with about 5000 line orders per week. The UK is on target to hit one million unbundled loops in 2006.
* Ofcom ...
December 8th 2005
By: Roger Darlington
The European Commission's revision of the Television Without Frontiers Directive to extend it to most audio-visual material has caused great concern in the UK where the Government, Ofcom and most of industry have seen this as an unnecessary and unhelpful set of proposals that fails to understand the dynamics of ...
December 8th 2005
By: Russ
I just read an interesting article in the most recent McKinsey Quarterly, focusing on the role of regulation in corporate strategy. McKinsey writes in part:
Despite the increasing importance of regulation, many businesses, even in heavily regulated industries, treat regulatory strategy as more art than science. Many lobby and conduct ...
December 8th 2005
By: Russ
Ofcom announced today a series of administrative and procedural reforms to its ship licensing requirements. The new policies are contained in this policy statement.
Well, this is a good thing, and Ofcom are moving in the right direction any time they make greater use of technology to interface with the ...
December 6th 2005
By: Russ
Folks, Ofcom just released an interesting consultation on cross-promotion. I�ll probably write more on this later, but here is a brief overview.
* The consultation document is available here.
* Ofcom proposes two main policies:
1. A requirement on all commercial television licensees to limit the subject of cross-promotions to broadcasting-related services. This ...
December 6th 2005
By: EuroTelcoBlog
The clock is ticking on data retention policy for the EU, and the good folks at EDRI (along with many others) are miffed at the process, which they question as being less than democratic and transparent. Not to mention that the entire exercise is almost certainly pointless and counterproductive. Point ...
December 6th 2005
By: Luke
Ofcom has selected Capgemini UK plc as its preferred bidder for an Information Systems contract which includes integrating or replacing the organisation's legacy systems inherited from previous regulators.
Capgemini will run Ofcom's IT systems for a five-year period from 1st February 2006 under the terms of a contract expected to ...
