European Commission Archives — LIRNEasia


I was invited to speak to the staff of the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission in Seville last Tuesday (11th October 2016). Their colleagues from Ispra, Italy joined in via video conference as well. I talked about LIRNEasia’s experiences and lessons in leveraging big data for public purposes. The slides that I used are available HERE.
Payal Malik, Senior Research Follow (India), LIRNEasia will be speaking at the International conference organized by the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre – Institute for Prospective Technological Studies (JRC-IPTS, Information Society Unit) on the 20 October 2011. She will be speaking at the “Changing computer services and software R&D landscape” session along with Martin Przewloka, Senior Vice President, SAP Research Internet Applications & Services and Fabien A. P. Petitcolas, Director for Innovation, Europe, Microsoft Europe. The session will be chaired by Jean-Paul Simon of JRC-IPTS, European Commission.
LIRNEasia Senior Research Fellow, Payal Malik, recently made a presentation on “Trends in the ICT industry and ICT R&D in India” at a conference organized by the Information Society Unit of the Institute for Prospective Technological studies (JRC-IPTS, European Commission) in Brussels, Belgium. The conference was titled, “Asian Rise in ICT R&D – Looking for evidence: Debating collaboration strategies, threats and opportunities”. The conference gathered some 60 selected international experts and commission’s staff. Click here to view presentation.
Much of modern telecom regulation is about preventing the extension of market power for oligopolistic markets to relatively competitive markets. One method used to do this is bundling two products, one from the former and the other from the latter. Conventional antitrust envisaged both the products being sold for a price, or of one being given “free” with the other. In the case of the flurry of competition-law proceedings around Microsoft, one issue was the bundling of the Explorer browser (available for free download) with the Windows operating system. Finally the consumers are being given an explicit choice at the behest of the European Commission, and they are taking it.
Brussels, Nov 25-26 – Third Civil Protection Forum organized by the European Commission. It rains heavily, but fortunately no floods as in Ireland. Ideal environment to discuss disaster risks. I speak at Seminar F titled ‘Innovative Technology for Disaster Management’. I am one of the two speakers from Asia in the entire conference; the other is from Japan.
First the EU said: Network interconnection by means of the Internet Protocol (IP) has been a vital enabler of the Internet’s ubiquity and success. IP-based interconnection has usually been achieved without explicit regulatory obligations, and has for the most part been highly effective. Given the rapid evolution of the economic, technological and social environment this study of the European Union investigates whether IP interconnection is still better left unregulated. Martyn Warwick of telecomtv slammed: You have to wonder if some “analysts” live in the same world as the rest of us. Take for example a hefty new report, commissioned by the European Commission and written by a German research organisation, that goes so far as to recommend the abolition of termination fees – on the peculiar grounds that we might as well because, one day, everything will be the Internet anyway.

Europe in the lead of anti-trust law

Posted on February 28, 2008  /  0 Comments

Microsoft Gets Record Fine and a Rebuke From Europe – New York Times The European antitrust regulator imposed a record $1.35 billion fine against Microsoft on Wednesday in a ruling intended to send a clear message to the world’s largest software maker — and to any other company — of the dangers of flouting Europe’s competition rulings. Neelie Kroes, Europe’s antitrust regulator, expressed irritation with Microsoft, saying it had not complied with a 2004 ruling. Related Times Topics: Microsoft Corporation The size of the penalty, which surprised lawyers and legal experts, was a clear assertion of the power of the European Commission and its main antitrust regulator, Neelie Kroes, who is its competition commissioner. She has emerged from a lengthy legal battle with Microsoft as possibly the world’s most activist regulator.
A single European Union-wide telecoms market could be in place from 2010 after the European Commission set out plans to increase competition. Under the new plans, a regional watchdog would be created and former monopolies could be forced to split up their network and services operations. The planned changes are designed to offer consumers cheaper broadband services and phone calls from fixed line and mobile handsets, the Commission also argues. It claims that consumers are currently losing out because in many member countries, including Poland, Italy and Germany, the former state telecoms monopolies still dominate, particularly in the broadband market. The proposals will now be debated in the European Parliament.
BBC NEWS | Business | EU plans crackdown on mobile fees “A plan to regulate mobile phone charges for calls made abroad will shortly be published by the European Commission, despite intense opposition. The industry is concerned that the proposals go too far, and even within the commission itself there are doubts. At present, most users pay far more to make mobile calls when they are abroad than they do in their home country. This is because service providers have to pay large fees for access to one another’s networks.” Not the highest priority for regulators in emerging Asia.