Reducing protectionism in the telecommunications industries

Ensuring competitive telephone industries
Limiting monopolies in the telephone industry
Liberalization of telecommunications

Implementation

In the 1990s, the European Union began promoting liberalization of telecommunications and competition in the sector in order to bring down the costs of telephone calls and to encourage job creation. Since 1 January 1998 the monopoly traditionally enjoyed by national telephone companies came to an end in most EU countries.

Claim

Both consumers and manufacturers benefit from a European area free of technical frontiers, thanks to the GSM standard for mobile phones, for example.

The existence of at least two mobile telephone companies in each European Union country has led to lower rates. Moreover, intervention by EU authorities has on occasion put an end to practices which penalized users.