EC Commissioner for Information Society and Media, Viviane Reding, yesterday spoke on the future of telecoms and radio spectrum regulation. For the MS Word version of her remarks, click here. It’s an ambitious agenda she sets out. Among other things she calls for:

* The creation of a European radio spectrum agency and a more marketplace-oriented approach to the regulation of the wireless industry.

* A consideration of mandated structural separation in the telecoms industry. She says that Ofcom ‘has made good experiences with this remedy’ and also points to the U.S. example (albeit with the incorrect assertion that broadband infrastructure competition resulted from the 1984 AT&T break-up ~ it didn’t; it came from the cable television industry).

* An EU-wide telecoms regulator. (Is this where Stephen Carter is headed?). Sounds like a needless layer of meta-regulation to me. Reding claims that this move would create ‘a real level playing field for telecom operators across the EU’. Not just level, but real level. Awesome!

Reding closes by saying that these ideas will appear in consultation documents to be released by her office later this week.

Stay tuned…