INTUG

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In a speech at the World Economic Forum yesterday, European Commissioner Neelie Kroes called for a partnership between governments, the ICT industy and business users to work on standardization and security of cloud computing. Through this collaboration, Kroes wants to safeguard competition and thus avoid vendor lock-ins.

Read Ms. Kroes’s speech.

On 25 January the European Commission published a broad legislative package aimed at safeguarding personal data across the EU. The proposal, if approved, is expected to strengthen citizens’ rights and could have a far-reaching impact on the way online data are collected and processed.

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This week the specifications for next-generation mobile technologies – IMT-Advanced – were agreed by the ITU Radiocommunication Assembly in Geneva. The IMT-Advanced standard allows for capabilities that go beyond IMT-2000, widely deployed since 2000 and commonly referred to as 3G mobile technologies.

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International long-distance traffic growth is slowing rapidly. According to new data from telecoms research firm TeleGeography, international long-distance traffic grew just 4 percent in 2011, to 438 billion minutes. This growth rate was less than one-third of the industry’s long-run historical average of 13 percent annual growth.

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Over the last few days, the proposed new EU mobile roaming regulation has come before the European Parliament and the Council. While many of the proposed amendments to the regulation are going in the right direction, the price caps are still much too high and the EU is risking destroying the business of small operators wishing to enter the roaming market.

INTUG and Europeans for Fair Roaming therefore demand that the European Parliament and the Council take the right decisions now.

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EU’s Digital Agenda Commissioner Neelie Kroes is under intense pressure from member states that are threatening to delay or water down her proposal to abolish cross-border tariffs on mobile phone calls within Europe by 2016.

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Yesterday the European statistics office Eurostat released data on broadband, ICT and Internet use of businesses in the EU. The share of businesses having mobile broadband connections at their disposal has grown in all member states, with the largest increases registered in Estonia (from 9% in 2010 to 48% in 2011), Germany (from 22% to 57%), Greece (from 6% to 38%) and France (from 28% to 60%).

The highest shares of enterprises with mobile broadband access in 2011 were found in Finland (77%), Sweden (67%) and Austria (65%), and the lowest in Romania (15%), Latvia (23%) and Poland (24%).

For the EU as a whole, the mobile broadband share amounts to 47%.

Read the full press release.

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The EU is currently in talks with the US over its reluctance to allow sensitive data transfers between the two economic powers under the US Patriot Act, one of many obstacles to the wider adoption of cloud computing.

Public tenders for cloud services in some European countries are already avoiding US providers for fear of falling under the US Patriot Act, which compels companies to transfer the personal data of terror suspects to Washington authorities.

Read more on the EurActiv web site.