Reforming EU regulations
The CEOs of Vodafone, Telefonica, Orange and Deutsche Telekom united in demanding regulatory changes to ensure continued ability to serve customers, invest in networks and innovate. At the same time, the European Union is ramping up regulations as innovations in connectivity advance. At MWC,the Digital Networks Act,along with regulations surrounding mobile, satellite and AIwere keytopics.
Major telcos operators are calling for a “new deal” to allow better cross-border scaling, which may suggest some changes in consolidation. The DNA aims to build a digital single market for Europe including changes in awarding spectrum across EU countries.
The White Paper on DNA was released by the European Commission ahead of MWC24, with the aim of gearing investment toward digital infrastructure, ensuring fair competition between operators and emerging players on spectrum allocation, and deploying secure digital infrastructure through post-quantum encryption standards.
Operators did call for more fairness and inclusion in the EU Taxonomy, incorporating elements of stronger regulations for sustainability. In general, 2024 has also kickstarted some major EU regulations for the telco industry, including the AI Act and the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD). Although these weren’t covered to the same extent as DNA, they will shape telco industry reporting and implementation and consumer interaction with artificial intelligence.
