A study reveals that the telecom customer journey in the EU is significantly impacted by 34 distinct regulatory obligations stemming from nine sector-specific and 19 horizontal regulations. The study, prepared for Connect Europe by consulting firm Arthur D. Little, highlights the overly complex telecoms framework further complicating the achievement of Europe’s single market due to fragmented national implementation.

As the European Commission discusses ambitious simplification measures, this report proposes a clear, actionable agenda aimed at simplifying telecom regulation, ensuring a level-playing field, and advancing towards a genuinely unified European telecom market.

Telecoms: 34 distinct obligations affect the customer lifecycle

EU consumers currently navigate a telecom landscape shaped by a complex web of 34 sets of regulatory obligations. Among those, Arthur D. Little identifies at least 12 obligations as overlapping between sector-specific and general consumer laws, with 16 obligations classified as particularly stringent and telecom-specific. This creates three primary challenges: over-regulation, an uneven playing field, and market fragmentation. Consequently, customers experience confusion and inconsistencies both within and across national markets, diminishing overall service satisfaction. Despite these challenges, the sector delivered tremendous value: between 2014 and 2023, telecom operators in Europe increased mobile data usage per citizen tenfold while reducing the average revenue per GB by 85 per cent, enabling widespread access to affordable, high-quality connectivity.

Connectivity ecosystem: companies face 28 regulations, impacting financial sustainability for operators

Arthur D. Little identifies a total of 28 regulations impacting telecom operator – nine specifically targeting telecoms and 19 broader in scope. This regulatory burden significantly affects the clarity of the rules for end users and complicates the possibility of cross-border offers due to substantial national divergences.

It also weighs heavily on the sector’s financial sustainability. Between 2014 and 2023, European telecom operators experienced an annual average market capitalisation decline of 1.8 per cent. In contrast, less regulated peers – including telecoms in other regions and global tech platforms – saw annual market capitalisation growth of 1.1 per cent and 36 per cent respectively.

Single market: persistent fragmentation still harms customers and companies

The report details severe fragmentation in the implementation of telecom rules across EU member states, notably in consumer protection, net neutrality, security measures, data retention and security incident reporting. Specifically, when looking at net neutrality, Arthur D. Little found at least 10 different implementation approaches across Europe, negatively impacting the rollout of innovative services such as 5G network slicing and real-time telemedicine.

The big tech advantage: gaps in consumer safeguards

Despite competing directly in markets like voice, messaging, and internet services, telecom operators face regulation in eight relevant policy areas, whereas tech companies face obligations in only three, which means end users do not benefit from the same protection depending on which service they use.

Arthur D. Little also notes that tech platforms remain largely unregulated despite their increasing dominance over traffic delivery and service quality. This imbalance affects users and has broader implications for competition and the overall competitiveness of the connectivity ecosystem, particularly in areas such as traffic management, differentiation and rerouting.

Simplification: 3 actions to improve Europe’s connectivity

To achieve Europe’s Digital Decade goals, the report recommends a three-step reform strategy: