| BELTUG UPDATE 20 MAY 2010 |
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BELTUG welcomes new president and board member Lobbying
1. Soon lower tariffs for Fixed-to-mobile traffic
2. BELTUG/INTUG present the vision of business users on roaming regulations to the European Commission
3. An ambitious Digital Agenda for Europe unveiled yesterday - BELTUG/INTUG meet Neelie Kroes, European Commissioner
4. BELTUG/INTUG paper “International Mobile Services and the Multinational Customer - A Dysfunctional Market” Information and vision
1. New presentations, case stories and reports available
2. No fixed social security contribution for private use of company GSM – but the tax issues still remain!
3. Latest consultations - Leased lines towards China and WAN architecture
4. How do you motivate your IT department – take a look at this GlaxoSmithKline Biologicals initiative Networking
1. BELTUG keeps on growing: welcome to our new members – now up to 845!
2. VIP Evening
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BELTUG welcomes new president and board member |
At the Annual General Meeting, Claude Rapoport, CEO of Portima (the network between insurance companies and brokers) was elected as the new president of BELTUG. Tom Van Wint, Helpdesk and Telecoms Manager at Sita Recycling Services, was elected as a new Board member. Roeland Vander meiren stepped down as President and Board Member, in order to focus his involvement on BELTUG projects, as Project Manager in the BELTUG team. The Board warmly thanks Roeland for his excellent work for BELTUG over the last 10 years, which helped insure our success. |
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Lobbying
BELTUG defends your interests and addresses issues with government representatives and service providers.
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1. Soon lower tariffs for Fixed-to-mobile traffic |
We already reported that BIPT published a draft decision to drastically reduce mobile termination rates, causing the high tariffs for fixed-to-mobile traffic. | €cent/min* | Today | 2010 | 1/1/2011 | 1/1/2012 | 1/1/2013 | | Proximus | 7.20 | 4.45 | 3.77 | 2.42 | 1.07 | | Mobistar | 9.02 | 4.86 | 4.10 | 2.59 | 1.07 | | BASE | 11.43 | 5.60 | 4.69 | 2.88 | 1.07 |
BELTUG published its opinion on the draft decision. Our main request to BIPT is to make sure that the fixed operators immediately pass the benefits from the decreases on to the market.
In the mean time BIPT confirmed to BELTUG that it will be mandatory for Belgacom to pass the decreases immediately to the businesses and residential market. We are confident that other operatos will follow.
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2. BELTUG/INTUG present the vision of business users on roaming regulations to the European Commission |
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BEREC (the Body of European Regulators) published a report about the roaming price evolution. For roaming data services there remains a significant gap between wholesale and the non-regulated retail prices, showing margins of 200-300 %. This phenomenon will be further investigated by the EU to define if more stringent regulation of this sector is required or if the market can self-regulate the end-user prices for data roaming in order to stimulate consumption. Danielle Jacobs was invited by the European Commission to explain the impact of roaming regulation for business users. We made the audience aware of the fear for bill shocks (both voice and data), of the price increase outside Europe, the need for appropriate alerting tools to inform fleet managers, the lack of real international offerings and the inconsistency between international and roaming tariffs (e.g. an international SMS of 30 cent versus a roaming SMS of 11 cent). |
3. An ambitious Digital Agenda for Europe unveiled yesterday - BELTUG/INTUG meet Neelie Kroes, European Commissioner |
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BELTUG and INTUG are very pleased to have a face-to-face meeting planned with Commissioner Neelie Kroes for June 22nd. At the meeting, we will discuss the concerns of the business market. Yesterday an ambitious Digital Agenda for Europe was unveiled. Half of European productivity growth over the past 15 years was already driven by information and communications technologies (see IP/10/571) and this trend is likely to accelerate. The Agenda outlines seven priority areas for action: creating a digital Single Market, greater interoperability, boosting internet trust and security, much faster internet access, more investment in research and development, enhancing digital literacy skills and inclusion, and applying information and communications technologies to address challenges facing society like climate change and the ageing population. In these seven areas, the Digital Agenda foresees some 100 follow-up actions, of which 31 would be legislative. Full press release - Text of the communication - Digital Agenda for Europe: what would it do for me? - Digital Agenda for Europe: key initiatives - A Digital Agenda for Europe - Opening remarks at press conference in Brussels on 19th May 2010 by Neelie Kroes, Vice-President of the European Commission, responsible for the Digital Agenda- European Digital Agenda website |
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4. BELTUG/INTUG paper “International Mobile Services and the Multinational Customer - A Dysfunctional Market” |
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Today, international companies are still seeking a truly competitive one-stop-shopping offer. This would include a single contract, a single ordering point, a single delivery point, a single support contact centre and a single billing centre for a maximum of countries worldwide. BELTUG/INTUG summarised the concerns of the international businesses in a paper.
On June 22nd, BELTUG will discuss these concerns with Vodafone and Orange. BELTUG ICT decision makers will be invited for this meeting. |
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Information and vision We want BELTUG members to be the best informed ICT decision makers and professionals. |
1. New presentations, case stories and reports available |
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BELTUG members can consult a lot of new inspiring content online (presentations, reports, etc.): Three new case stories, presented at BELTUG activities are available: - FOD/SPF Social Security: A dynamic office providing 1000 co-workers with a modern & flexible workspace, teleworking and up-to-date communications tools. Kris Bouten, Production & Infrastructure Manager, FOD/SPF Social Security.
- The Federal Public Service Foreign Affairs: Co-sourcing communications for international offices, via public tender. Frédéric Ruelle, Architecture & Operations Project Manager
- The Brussels Airport Company: A balanced approach to outsourcing. Pierre Gehrenbeck, CUTE & Telecommunications Manager
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2. No fixed social security contribution for private use of company GSM – but the tax issues still remain! |
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The Government has decided not to impose fixed social security contributions for the use of a company GSM by an employee. The good news is this means no extra fixed costs (with the initial proposal, the ‘true’ cost of a € 50/month mobile subscription could have risen to € 59.90). But it is important to keep in mind that the tax issues remain.
We know of several BELTUG members who have already been fined for not taking the right measures.
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3. Latest consultations - Leased lines towards China and WAN architecture |
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4. How do you motivate your IT department – take a look at this GlaxoSmithKline Biologicals initiative |
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| GlaxoSmithKline Biologicals’ IT Department put together a music video for a company event, as a team spirit / engagement exercise. This LipDub, posted on YouTube, shows how a company can use social media to attract the new generation, as well as offering a demo of digital marketing. See for yourself. |
Networking |
1. BELTUG keeps on growing: welcome to our new members – now up to 845! |
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Since February, we have welcomed a lot of new members:Valuendo, Logica, Econocom Managed Services, DCI IT management, Nico Peelen, NTT Europe Ltd., Terremark, CSC, Uptime Group, Human Interface Group, DC, Federal Public Service Foreign Affairs, ISS, V-IT nv, TechTeam, IPG Group, Interxion, A & B Groep, Anatole Consulting (formerly known as Lucid), Rainbow ICT Services, Projinit BVBA. |
2. VIP Evening |
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Our 2010 VIP Evening was a big success, with over 300 BELTUG members registering. As always, this event offers real VIP benefits: Valuable contacts, Information sharing and Powerful lobbying. We found out about the new Chairman, Luc Hindryckx of BIPT’s vision and business approach to change. Jef Staes then showed us the way to laughter and through the battlefield of innovation. The presentations are available. You can also have a look at the pictures as well as a short movie. |
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| Agenda |
Upcoming events: More information can be found on our webagenda. |
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