BEREC elects ComReg chairman as first president

bealtine

BEREC elects ComReg chairman as first president Tuesday 5 January 2010


The Body of European Regulators in Electronic Communications (BEREC) has elected Reinaldo Rodriguez, president of Spanish telecoms regulator CMT, as member of its board. The BEREC board includes one representative per telecoms regulator in Germany, France, the Netherlands and Ireland. John Doherty, chairperson of Irish regulator ComReg, will be the first president of BEREC. The BEREC chairman's term of office is one year. The new advisory body BEREC will be under the control of independent EU national regulators. BEREC will hold its inaugural meeting on 28 January 2010 in Brussels.

Tom Young

Old, old news. This was announced under the ERG - European Regulators Group, format about July last. More triumphalist clap trap. Mike Byrne is to Chair some spectrum management group in Brussels also.

It will make no difference whatsoever.

I do however note that ComReg's new General Counsel is excellent. He joined in August from BT Retail, maybe he'll be able to clean up some of the act while Larry and Mo are off in Brussels. Or, will absolutely nothing be approved now until it has glanced off the fold-up liga stained table top belonging to an Aer Lingus Jet to Brussels?

"Ministerial Policy Direction: No international travel." DCENR Perm Rep to cover BEREC and Spectrum work for ComReg. Well, I can dream.

Yours frustrated.

Tom

clohamon

John O'Doherty had already been made Chairman of Cocom but it looks like it and the other European Regulators Group (ERG) committees below are going to be allowed to wither away in favor of BEREC. They include:

Communications committee (Cocom)
Radio Spectrum committee (RSC)
Radio Spectrum Policy group (RSPG)
Contact committee on TV broadcasting

The main difference seems to be the funding of the Office which is now partially from contributions by Member states, some of which would be for specific activities. On the basis of "he who pays the piper calls the tune" this new body would seem to favour Europe's big boys.

The revenues and resources of the Office shall consist, in particular, of:…..

…….(b) financial contributions from Member States or from their NRAs made on a voluntary basis in accordance with Article 5(2). These contributions shall be used to finance specific items of operational expenditure as defined in the agreement to be concluded between the Office and the Member States or their NRAs

The harmonization procedure seems to allow for binding decisions to be made on all members and BEREC to have effectively a veto of individual NRA decisions.

It is doubtful that the department or Comreg actually welcome this development. A meeting of the Dail committee on European Scrutiny (10/04/08) drew this observation from an assistant Secretary of DCENR, Peter O'Neill.

It is certainly our view that the proposed European telecoms market authority represents an unnecessary interference. Another issue of concern to us is the proposal for the Commission to have a power of veto over remedies applied by national regulators.

and later

I turn to the proposed new European electronic communications market authority. It has been noted that there is some reluctance, and perhaps justifiably so, to a seeming shift of power towards the centre. There has been vociferous opposition to the proposed veto role for the Commission on market remedies and the proposed new authority.
Ireland is not alone in believing that it is important that the principle of subsidiarity is respected, not least in matters concerning spectrum. Member states must retain flexibility to address matters of national importance, while also being able to influence and co-operate on issues concerning European spectrum policy.

*OFF TOPIC*

Incidentally the same DCENR official (Peter O'Neill) made this observation concerning Japan and Korea at that meeting.

Japan was mentioned a few times. Japan and Korea are held up as two countries that are advanced in terms of the roll-out of fibre networks. Even at that, broadband is not available everywhere in Japan. Even though Japan and Korea provide 100 Mbs speeds, usage is low. The majority of people in Japan use this speed for e-mail, which they could send with a 2 Mbs speed. According to the OECD recently, productivity in these countries has not changed at all, despite the heavy investment in 100 Mbs speed. The Department is preparing a policy paper on next generation broadband, which will be distributed for public consultation.

Peter O'Neill was chairman of the committee that oversaw the NBS tender.

bealfeirste5

Just reading this post with interest as i study regulatory law and was wondering what exactly BEREC do?

Sponge Bob

They do nothing amd because they intend to continue to do nothing they put John O' Doherty in charge in a sort of dog marking its territory kind of way of being in charge.

Mike Byrne knows about as much about spectrum as my dog does about his father. Mike gave us gems like the Internet being overly functional ( USO directive) at 2.4k and it would seem to Mike to be better at 0k and Mike made it so. He was in charge of consumer affairs before he became a commissioner and we all know what Comreg was and is like on consumer affairs.

BEREC intend to have regular meetings about arcane topics they themselves neither understand nor care in the least about and assidously eat in a selection of the best restaurants in Europe.

It could all be done by email nowadays .....if you knew anything about communications that is

amtc

FFS, please at least get facts right. It's John Doherty not O'Dohertu and he is not Chairman of Cocom (which is a ministerial post!). No great Comreg fan, but inaccuracies suit no one

bealtine

amtc wrote: »

FFS, please at least get facts right. It's John Doherty not O'Dohertu and he is not Chairman of Cocom (which is a ministerial post!). No great Comreg fan, but inaccuracies suit no one

Indeed so lets get and keep things straight...

http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/policy/ecomm/implementation_enforcement/comm_committee/index_en.htm

clohamon

bealtine wrote: »

Indeed so lets get and keep things straight...

http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/policy/ecomm/implementation_enforcement/comm_committee/index_en.htm

My mistake - sorry. John Doherty was elected last year as chair of the European Regulators Group (ERG) for 2010.

bealtine

clohamon wrote: »

My mistake - sorry. John Doherty was elected last year as chair of the European Regulators Group (ERG) for 2010.

He's safe over there nothing to do and all day to do it...
At least he can't screw up the Irish communications landscape anymore...or can he?

Sponge Bob

He has just been unchaired in Comreg and Chisholm is in charge.

Tom Young

bealfeirste5 wrote: »

Just reading this post with interest as i study regulatory law and was wondering what exactly BEREC do?

Great - You should read this then: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?type=TA&reference=P6-TA-2009-0362&language=EN

In effect Berec is a ERG - European Regulators Group, mark two and with a few more (hens) teeth.

Tom

bealtine

Tom Young wrote: »

Great - You should read this then: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?type=TA&reference=P6-TA-2009-0362&language=EN

In effect Berec is a ERG - European Regulators Group, mark two and with a few more (hens) teeth.

Tom

talking shop...