Corporates threaten to quit Europe over telecoms tariffs

NEWS Europe's biggest corporates are threatening to relocate their network hubs to the US if regulators don't force telcos to cut their leased line and cross-border connection fees. Speaking at the Telecommunications Managers Association (TMA) 32 conference in Brighton this week, Nick White, IT director at Unilever and former chairman of the TMA, told delegates: "Companies in Europe can't afford the prices being charged by telecoms operators," and he added, "Europe is in danger of lagging further behind as a result." White said cross-border charges for leased lines in Europe are unacceptably high - claiming that the cost-to-price ratio can be as much as 16:1, and this ironically makes West Virginia, in the US, the cheapest place to host a network hub for Europe. His comments were echoed by Vivienne Peters, the director of regulatory affairs at American Express, who said her company had, in fact, been forced to do just that. "We have an annual global budget of over $11bn for just the voice and data network and that makes up 15 per cent of our total expenses. Consequently we are highly sensitive to the regulatory framework in Europe. We have had to go west, exactly as Nick says, to reduce costs," she said. Peters insisted the way costs can be reduced in Europe is by having regulators enforce greater interoperability among the telecoms operators, and through competitive cost-based pricing. White agreed: "We want 'one world' networks not internal networks. We want genuine choice and competition; and we want free market prices that are cost-related rather than content-related." Meanwhile, Oftel has launched an investigation into the cost of leased lines in the UK, following an EU directive spearheaded by Erkki Liikanen, European Commissioner for innovation and information society.