ECTA, Jones Day, SPC Network Regulatory Scorecard 2008
ECTA's latest benchmark of 20 European countries shows that beneficial market outcomes are most likely to be found where regulators have strong tools to enforce EU pro-competition rules.
The 2008 Regulatory Scorecard shows that the best outcomes for consumers are found where regualtors are empowered and active. The independence of the telecoms regulatory system from Government appears to affect the overall ‘regulatory effectiveness’ of countries as measured. In particular, state ownership in telecoms companies seems to be particularly influential in determining overall effectiveness of telecoms regulation. This report, commissioned by the European Competitive Telecommunications Association (ECTA), compares the telecoms regulatory environment and the application of the current legislative Framework in 20 European countries. This year’s results show that countries where regulators have taken action to enable competition to flourish, including the UK, Netherlands and Scandinavian countries, have seen strong performance in their telecoms markets. However, others including Poland, the Czech Republic and Greece have fallen behind, while institutional weaknesses may be preventing Germany, Belgium and Finland from reaching their full potential. The 2008 Scorecard also clearly illustrates that the ability of the regulator to tackle competitive problems can have tangible consequences for consumers – affecting the price of telecom services, as well as affecting longer term investment in the sector. In particular, in countries where regulators have enforced access to the incumbents’ local loop to open broadband markets to competition, broadband prices are typically the lowest and the broadband speeds the fastest.
