A report from the European Commission finds that the communications sector is stabilizing. The report points to renewed business and consumer confidence, saying that broadband and mobile communications are the main drivers of growth. Overall, the European telecom sector has grown faster in 2003 than the overall rate of growth of the EU economies. The rate of growth in telecom revenues is expected to reach between 3.7% and 4.7% for 2003, compared to an estimated 0.8% for the EU's overall GDP for 2003. Some additional highlights:
- The number of fixed broadband access lines has almost doubled over the last year but the competitive situation must improve further if the broadband sector is to truly thrive.
- There were 17.5 million broadband connections in the EU as of 30-June-2003. Of these, 12.46 million were DSL (71%), while 4.1 million (24%) were cable modems. The remaining 0.9 million were satellite, fiber or fixed wireless.
- Between January and July 2003, an average of 25,000 broadband connections per day were being activated across the EU.
- As of July 2003, EU countries with the highest broadband penetration were Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands and Sweden, with a penetration rate of about 10% (total number of broadband lines per 100 population).
- The number of new unbundled lines has grown by 828,000 between July 2002 and July 2003. This is double the number compared to the previous year but is still low as a proportion of total subscriber lines. Local loop unbundling is rather unbalanced across the EU and has not really taken off. Germany accounts for 63% of all unbundled lines.
- The weighted average price for the monthly rental of a 2 Mbps leased line (E1) has gone done from EUR 512 in 2001 to EUR 375 in July 2003.
- The economic downturn has discouraged new fixed line operators from entering the market. The number of large competing operators in each market has remained more of less stable. Many operators have refocused their efforts on their national market.
- Competitive pressure seems to have hit the local call segment, where the incumbent operators' fixed market share has on average decreased by 6% since December 2002.
- EU incumbents' market share in long distance seems to have stabilized at around 70%.
- The number of mobile subscribers has grown at a higher rate than in 2002, notwithstanding that the penetration rate is already close to 90% in a number of EU countries.
- There were 305.6 million mobile users in the EU as of 01-Aug-2003, representing 81% of EU citizens.
- Mobile number portability (MNP) only became compulsory in the EU on 25-July-2003, however most EU states had already implemented MNP at that point. As many as 11% of mobile numbers are ported in Denmark, 5% in the Netherlands, Sweden and the U.K. In absolute terms, about 6 million numbers have been ported in EU, representing about 2% of all mobile numbers.
The EC, however, expressed concern about the regulatory environment, noting that only eight EU member states have completed their transposition of the new EU legislation into national law. The new EU regulatory framework entered into force in July 2003. Infringement proceedings against the Member States that have not adopted the new legislation were opened in early October 2003.http://europa.eu.int
