By Martin Banks - 29th October 2009
More effective competition is needed
Viviane Reding
EU commissioner Viviane Reding has called for "more effective competition" in the telecoms sector.
The Luxembourg official said that more competition would particularly benefit consumers.
The commission says dominant telecoms operators still remain in control of "critical market segments", especially of the broadband market.
Reding, responsible for information society and media, said this continues to restrict consumers' freedom of choice. The commission says that 10 per cent of EU citizens still have no broadband access at all.
She said this is partly why "new consumer rights and more effective competition are needed" to put Europe's digital economy "on track".
Reding, who has won widespread praise for helping to open up the telecoms markets during her term in office, was commenting after a meeting in Brussels with Bonnie Peng, who chairs Taiwan's National Communications Commission.
Peng, Taiwan's telecoms regulator, said her country was "bridging the digital divide" by extending access to broadband facilities to even the most remote villages in Taiwan.
Taiwan is said to have one of the world's highest penetrations of broadband with latest figures saying that 81 per cent of Taiwanese households have the facility.
Peng said, "We have a universal service in the telecoms market and the next objective should be to do the same for broadband."
She said that extending the service to rural areas would help such remote communities halt a gradual demographic shift to towns and cities.
Describing the meeting with Peng as "very constructive", Reding, who is expected to remain a commissioner for the next five years, said it was "important" to have such an exchange of views.
"It clearly gives us the chance to see how things are done elsewhere when it comes to the whole telecoms sector," she said. "We agreed on the need for more effective competition in the telecoms market."
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