Addressing fragmentation in EU mobile telecom markets

Highlights - Mobile telecommunications markets are an important part of the European Commissionâ??s strategy for the completion of the European Union Digital Single. The use of mobile telecommunications â?? particularly mobile data access â?? is growingand becoming an increasingly important input for the economy. - The EU currently does not have a unified mobile telecommunications market. TheEU compares favourably to the United States in terms of prices and connectionspeed, but lags behind in terms of coverage of high-speed 4G wireless connections. -Europeâ??s long-term goal should be to make data access easier by increasing highspeedwireless coverage while keeping prices down for users. An increase incross-border competition could help to achieve that goal. - The Commission has two important levers to help stimulate cross-border supply:(a) ensuring competition in intra-country mobile markets in order to provide anincentive for operators to expand into other jurisdictions, and (b) reducing mobileoperatorsâ?? costs of expansion into multiple EU countries. The further developmentof policies on international roaming and radio spectrum management will be centralto this effort.