European Telecoms Will Not Become a Single Market.

The failure of the European telecoms sector to live up to its post-regulation era expectations in the 1990s has recently led to a number high profile meetings between politicians, regulators and the heads of the leading telecoms companies. Attempts are being made to find a solution to the poor financial performance of the European telecoms sector and the threat this is posing to European competiveness in the global economy. Despite full liberalisation of the European telecoms industry in 1998, the industry still remains highly fragmented along national lines. Unlike the USA and China, which have a single telecoms regulator and one authority that allocates mobile spectrum, Europe has 28 highly protective national regulators who are creating barriers to the establishment of a single European market in telecommunications. Attempts by the incumbent telecoms companies to move towards a Pan-European market model through consolidation (mergers and acquisitions) have also been hampered by EU anti-trust regulations.