The European Commission is on a collision course with Europe's biggest telecoms groups and national regulators with plans to introduce more competition into the industry.
Fresh from recent success imposing price caps on mobile operator roaming rates, EU Communications Commissioner Viviane Reding now wants to launch a radical overhaul of the rules governing the industry.
But even before the widely leaked package was made public today, it was drawing considerable fire from big operators and national telecom regulatory authorities alike.
The commission hopes the shake-up, which includes plans for a European telecoms watchdog, would encourage a Europe-wide communications market and do away with the patchwork of rules that currently complicates cross-border business.
The most radical proposal could see dominant telecommunications giants such as France Telecom or Deutsche Telekom split up, in much the same way as the commission has proposed to do in the energy sector.
Under the plans, national telecommunications regulators would be empowered to order a telecoms operator to separate its network activities into a separate business unit if they found competition to be wanting.
The aim is to make it easier for new telecoms operators to compete head-to-head with former state monopolies that inherited their countries' network infrastructure prior to privatisation.
The commission has taken much of its inspiration for the initiative from Britain where BT Group has pioneered splitting its network business from its other services with much success.
