Europe's telecommunication giants are considering sharing their infrastructure across borders in a bid to remain competitive, the Financial Times reported Wednesday - a move that
could spell out savings for consumers.
The daily said that "a pan-European infrastructure network" is being discussed following "prompting" by EU Competition Commissioner Joaquin Almunia, who has taken issue with national telecom mergers, but indicated that he could be more lenient on cross-border set-ups.
"Consolidation at European level can be a good thing if it brings new services, more choice and lower prices to customers," he had said publicly in mid-December, lamenting at the time that telecom markets have so far remained national and "highly concentrated" in the EU.
His spokesman on Wednesday confirmed that Almunia told top telecom officials during a meeting in November that "it would be desirable to achieve a genuine single market in the sector, as currently these companies operate their various subsidiaries on a national basis."
But the spokesman, Antoine Colombani, was quick to add that "any plan for pooling infrastructure or network sharing between telecom operators - if confirmed - would be the initiative of these companies only and does not originate from the commission."
The firms represented at the meeting with Almunia were Deutsche Telekom, Orange, Telecom Italia, Telefonica, Belgacom and KPN, he said.
Colombani also noted that "the effects on competition of such plans would have to be assessed." The European Commission is the EU's highest competition authority.