AT&T and Vodafone lead call for light touch regulation - Rethink Wireless
The cellco chiefs are calling for a far “lighter touch” in future spectrum policies, more suited to a world driven by fast, always-on connectivity and cloud services. “As 4G and the cloud proliferate, customer expectations for openness and seamless access to all services will increase,” said AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson. He wants regulators to encourage competition and openness, and new business models that harness mobile networks - Amazon Kindle, with its embedded 3G and its cloud service, was his example. “That seamlessness from the cloud will transform the user experience,” he said.
He wants operators to create a seamless “buy once, access anywhere” experience and this would require new policy initiatives - or rather, as few as possible. Regulators should “stay out of the way,” he added, with a rueful glance at current US net neutrality debates in wireless. Given the huge amount of investment carriers must make in 4G networks and cloud services, they need “a predictable regulatory environment with a light touch.”
Vodafone CEO Vittorio Colao also called for regulatory approaches that would encourage openness, investment and competition, and predictably criticized over-burdensome or repetitive spectrum fees. “It’s not investor friendly, which is not healthy in an investor driven industry,” he said. Instead, he wants a “a forward looking industrial policy on things like frequencies and investment”, not “regulations on autopilot”.
“They say, well this is the regulation on privacy and this is the regulation on neutrality and this is the regulation on mobile termination rates, but they’re disconnected elements that aren’t in line with the times any more,” Colao said.