Alcatel-Lucent, Deutsche Telekom and Vivendi have presented 11 proposals to the European Commission about how to achieve the EU's 2020 broadband targets, collectively known as the Digital Agenda 2020. The report follows an industry meeting with the EU information society commissioner Neelie Kroes in March, to discuss concerns the EU's broadband targets are under threat. A document backed by the three groups' CEOs focuses on the promotion of investment in next-generation networks. Proposals include providing incentives for players who "add value", in order to avoid pure arbitrage strategies; limiting regulation of operators active on the access network (layer 1), which is the most capital-intensive network operation; establishing a single binding European regulatory framework that still allows for regional circumstances; promoting co-investment and public funding for next-generation infrastructure in areas where competition on infrastructure doesn't develop or where a roll-out of NGA would otherwise not be possible; eliminating barriers to investment by promoting measures that stimulate demand, derisk investment and reduce roll-out costs; and promoting symmetrical open access to civil works and in-house wiring. They also called for work on open and interoperable standards for IP-based Quality of Service Interconnection (such as IPX) as well as for next-generation bitstream access and other NGA products. In addition, the executives called on regulatory authorities to recognise and support scale and specialisation as market trends, which can lead to cross-border mergers or layer-focused investments. The operators also want to promote traffic management and QoS differentiation, which they say will foster innovation and new services.
