The office in Brussels, Belgium, helps advance Ericsson’s aim of providing telecommunications for all by working closely with industry players. It liaises with EU institutions, governments and other Information and Communications Technologies decision-making bodies within the European Union.

Mats Nilsson, Head of the Ericsson European Affairs Office, says: “Decision making is a complex process and it is important to network, participate in public consultations and keep track of when issues are handled. There are also many informal meetings and forums where various stakeholders meet. We work a lot with operators, as well as competitors.”

Ericsson contributes industry knowledge and global experience to the development of Information and Communications Technologies within Europe, for example through its recent proposal for public-service TV.

“Distributing TV through IPTV and internet technology will increase the traffic in the networks and enable interactivity. We have pointed out the need to ensure that public-service TV also utilizes the benefits of IPTV technology,” Nilsson says.

The topics that Ericsson is currently monitoring in Europe range from the future direction of research and technology, to policies and regulations.

Much of the regulation deals with consumer rights and competition. The European Union advocates that all citizens should have access to communications services by promoting a competitive market that will both the benefit consumers and protect their interests through regulation. 

Regulations have, for example, forced former incumbent operators to open up their infrastructure to other players.

“This leads to increased competition and price pressure, which makes communication services more affordable to the end user,” Nilsson says.

He adds that Ericsson also wants to ensure operators’ interests are represented so that they are able to invest and develop their networks.

One area where European Union competition regulations are having a big impact is radio spectrum.

“Each country in Europe is responsible for its own radio spectrums, but to be able to roam between the countries, the spectrum allocation used for telecommunications needs to be coordinated and regulated in a synchronized way,” Nilsson says.

That is how the GSM directive came about in 1987, which stated that all European Union countries should use the 900MHz band for GSM services. This led to huge market growth through roaming traffic and was an important step in making GSM a global standard. The directive was recently updated to include 3G services, a decision in which Ericsson played an active role.