The telecommunications side of the Conference Europeene des administrations des Postes et des Telecommunications – CEPT met in London last week and has decided to set up a new European communications consultancy and study office with the intention being to influence radio spectrum use and allocations in the 26 European countries CEPT represents: other arrangements made at the same meeting will mean that the decisions of the committee will be taken exclusively at government level, and that these decisions will be more binding; CEPT, which was responsible for setting up the ETSI European Telecommunications Standards Institute, has also decided more clearly to mark the distinction between activities appropriate to network operators and those of regulatory bodies, and welcomed plans for the European network operators to set up Euroscom, the European Institute for Research and Strategic Studies.
