BRUEGEL POLICY CONTRIBUTION ISSUE 2015/13 JULY 2015 ADDRESSING FRAGMENTATION IN EU MOBILE TELECOMS MARKETS MARIO MARINIELLO AND FRANCESCO SALEMI Highlights • Mobile telecommunications markets are an important part of the European Com- mission’s strategy for the completion of the European Union Digital Single Market. The use of mobile telecommunications – particularly mobile data access – is gro- wing and becoming an increasingly important input for the economy. • The EU currently does not have a unified mobile telecommunications market. The EU compares favourably to the United States in terms of prices and connection speed, but lags behind in terms of coverage of high-speed 4G wireless connections. • Europe’s long-term goal should be to make data access easier by increasing high- speed wireless coverage while keeping prices down for users. An increase in cross-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 an incentive for operators to expand into other jurisdictions, and (b) reducing mobile Telephone operators’ costs of expansion into multiple EU countries. The further development +32 2 227 4210 of policies on international roaming and radio spectrum management will be central
[email protected] to this effort. www.bruegel.org Mario Mariniello (
[email protected]) is a Research Fellow at Bruegel. Francesco Salemi (
[email protected]) is a Research Assistant at Bruegel. The authors wish to thank Serafino Abate, Antonios Drossos, Stephen Gardner, J. Scott Marcus and Guntram Wolff for helpful comments. Research assistance by Afrola Plaku is gratefully acknowledged.