European telecommunications executives gathered at Europe’s biggest trade show — Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona seems quite upset with the excessive regulation in the region. According to a report in Bloomberg, at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona, telecom industry leaders voiced strong concerns about excessive regulation, pointing fingers at Brussels for stifling consolidation in a sector lagging behind its counterparts in the US and Asia.
Deutsche Telekom AG’s CEO, Tim Hottges, reportedly remarked, “Europe could really use a DOGE,” alluding to the US President Donald Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), led by Tesla CEO Elon Musk, known for slashing costs. His comments reflect growing discontent over a European telecom market bogged down by slim profits and fierce competition -— a sentiment shared by fellow telecom industry executives, including Vodafone’s Margherita Della Valle, Orange SA’s Christel Heydemann, and Telefonica SA’s Marc Murtra.
Europe is not winning the 5G war
Della Valle said, “In this global race, Europe’s falling behind. In the 5G era, we’re trailing.” Many executives see mergers as the solution, but regulators across Europe have repeatedly thwarted or altered deals that would shrink the number of operators per market from four to three, prioritizing affordable consumer prices.
Time to follow America, India and China
Hottges argued, “We should just copy what the Americans are doing,” said Höttges, whose Deutsche Telekom gets most of its revenue and profit from a stake in US operator T-Mobile US Inc. “China has three operators, even India went to three operators and they are prospering.”
The discussion capped a day of frustration aired by leaders from firms like Telefonica, Emirates Telecommunications Group, Telenor ASA, and Bharti Airtel Ltd, all of whom lamented the lack of financial payoff for their costly network investments.
Bharti Airtel chairman Sunil Bharti Mittal said that the industry bears the burden of building digital infrastructure, but is not getting enough back. “The return on capital? At 4% average,” Mittal said. “We may as well put the money in the bank and go and play some golf.”
