Brussels, 11/05/2001 (Agence Europe) - In its "Communications 2001 Survey", the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) pleads in favour of a speeding up of deregulation in the telecommunications sector to stimulate growth and reduce the digital gap. Noting "the potential contribution" of this sector through electronic commerce, the international organisation deplores the fact that the liberalization of the telecommunications sector is moving slowly, especially concerning local access. In a press release, the OECD stresses that "Internet, electronic commerce and the demand for access to broad band communications at a price that allow for a permanent connection play a major role in the development of recent communications policy". It also believes that deregulation could "reduce the digital gap ensuring greater access to information technologies". In 1999, the turnover of telecommunications companies with their headquarters in the OECD area amounted to $1,300 billion, 63% of which attributable to communications services, 23% to equipment and 14% to radio-broadcasting services. The same year, revenue for operators amounted to $800 billion, whereas the market in telecommunications services was estimated at over $ 753 billion. The OECD observes that the growth level of mobile networks was 49% between 1995 and 1999, whereas it was only 4% for fixed networks. It attributes the increase in the rate of penetration of mobile telephony to the arrival of pre-paid cards on the market and the possibility o making low-cost international calls. The pooling of the largest telecommunications operators, through mergers and acquisitions, does not seem to impress the OECD which, as counterweight, counts on the emergence of new entrants and the restructuring of large companies for regulatory or commercial reasons.
IMPALA fears ongoing mergers in internet sector should threaten market access
Impala, the association of independent music publishers, has referred to its fear faced with the concentration operations that are taking place on the "on-line" music market, involving the three main internet suppliers (AOL, RealNetworks and Yahoo) and the five largest musical publishing companies (Warner, Sony, EMI, Universal and Bertelsman). According to Impala, the two large companies to emerge from these operations, Duet (Vivendi/Universal, Sony, Yahoo) and MusicNet 9RealNetworks, BMG, EMI and AOL/Time Warner), control 80 to 85% of the world retailing market. Impala considers that these partnerships will "increase the barriers to the emerging market of Internet music services". The independent companies are calling for "free access to a market that should amount ot $5.4 billion in 2005".