More rules
5. Consumer protection against personal data breaches and spam: Thenew rules introduce mandatory notifications for personal data breaches - the first law of its kind in Europe. This means that communications providers will be obliged to inform the authorities and their customers about security breaches affecting their personal data.
In addition, the rules concerning privacy and data protection are strengthened, e.g. on the use of ‘cookies' and similar devices. Furthermore, internet service providers will also gain the right to protect their business and their customers through legal action against spammers.
6. Better access to emergency services, 112: Better access to emergency services by extending the access requirements from traditional telephony to new technologies, strengthening operators' obligation to pass information about caller location to emergency authorities, and by improving general awareness of the European emergency number '112'.
7. National telecoms regulators will gain greater independence: The new telecoms rules reinforce national telecoms regulators' independence by eliminating political interference in their day-to-day duties and by adding protection against arbitrary dismissal for the heads of national regulators.
8. A new European Telecoms Authority that will help ensure fair competition and more consistency of regulation on the telecoms markets. The new European Telecoms Authority "BEREC" (Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications) that will replace the loose cooperation behind closed doors that exists today in the "European Regulators Group" with a more transparent and more efficient approach.
9. A new Commission say on the competition remedies for the telecoms markets.
10. Functional separation as a means to overcome competition problems: National telecoms regulators will gain the additional tool of being able to oblige telecoms operators to separate communication networks from their service branches, as a last-resort remedy.
11. Accelerating broadband access for all Europeans: Better managing radio spectrum and by making it effectively available for wireless broadband services in regions where building a new fibre infrastructure is too costly; and by allowing Member States to expand universal service provisions beyond narrow-band internet access.
12. Encouraging competition and investment in next generation access networks: Trying to facilitate and accelerate the development and roll-out of next generation fibre-optic and wireless networks.
EU member states have until June 2011 to put all this into law.
