Europe's 5G future may be at risk if EU institutions don't make better progress on proposed reforms in the sector, according to a joint statement issued by leading industry groups. The GSMA, Cable Europe, ETNO, DigitalEurope, Cocir and the Developers Alliance issued the statement amid concerns about the current progress in passing the new Electronic Communications Code, which will form the basis of all telecom network regulation, and the revised ePrivacy regulation, which covers data protection for communications providers.
The statement comes ahead of a EU Council meeting of telecoms ministers to discuss amendments to the draft legislation.
The industry groups said the two pieces of legislation "should be seen as instruments to enable widespread innovation in all networks, services and business models". The aim of the regulation should be encouraging investment and innovation, offering a harmonised and predictable spectrum policy, and flexible privacy requirements. Instead, the current discussions in the European Parliament and Council appear to be taking a "more timid approach that will do little to improve Europe’s chances of success", the groups said, adding "the outlook for innovators appears quite grim".
Rather than easing the regulatory burden, lawmakers appear to have plans to further increase rules and complexity, both through the ECC and the ePrivacy regulation. The associations called on the EU institutions "to maintain a high level of ambition to ensure that the strategic 5G objectives remain at the core of Europe’s digital reforms".
The GSMA added its own statement on mobile industry concerns, focusing on the need to remove "sector-specific" regulation, such as some of the consumer protection provisions in the ePrivacy legislation. In particular, it wants lawmakers to think more about the needs of IoT services provisioning, which may be held back by imposing end-user protections specific to internet access services and interpersonal communications. It wants the regulation to apply conveyance of signals sector-specific regulation only to requirements relating to security and privacy.
