Europe to Offer 5-Year Plan for Telecom Industry

On Wednesday, Neelie Kroes, the new European commissioner for the digital agenda, plans to introduce a five-year plan for the telecommunications industry in Europe, encompassing issues like digital copyright, data protection, network neutrality and e-commerce.

Her goal, she has said, is to create a functioning single European Union market for telecommunications, one that will let people speak, send text messages and use the Internet from anywhere in the bloc's 27 nations without paying exorbitant fees to mobile operators. But as the release of the long-awaited digital agenda draws near, some competition advocates are worried that Ms. Kroes, who has served on the boards of more than 20 global companies, may not take on the Continent's powerful telecommunications operators. She plans over the next five years to address the biggest digital issues affecting Europeans, strengthening privacy protections online and preventing operators from limiting Internet content on their networks.