The first initiative developed by the COIT Chair is the coordination of the Telecommunications Regulation Group (GRETEL, Grupo de Regulación de las Telecomunicaciones). The GRETEL is made up by a multi-disciplinary group of experts who, summoned by the Colegio Oficial de Ingenieros de Telecomunicación and coordinated by the work team of the COIT Chair, periodically meet with the objective of analysing the evolution of the ICT sector from a regulatory perspective, proposing solutions and new approaches in this scope.
The results of GRETEL have been published in several volumes. The first two are entitled "Competition, Convergence and Regulation in the Telecommunications Markets, the Audiovisual in the Internet", published in 1998 and 2000. In April 2002 the GRETEL released its third volume, called "New European Telecommunications Design, the Audiovisual and Internet", which analyses in detail the new European regulating framework.
In the current stage of GRETEL, the objective is the periodical release of short books with the results obtained in each of the lines of investigation developed, and their subsequent spreading among the professionals of the sector.
Reports and articles
Throughout the first semester of 2004, GRETEL presented a series of works under the general title "The New European Framework of Electronic Communications and its Implementation in Spain". This work is divided into three differentiated parts with the purpose of dynamically dealing with all the key elements introduced by the practical application of the new regulatory scheme. The first one describes its general implications as well as the approached followed in the different countries of the European Union (“Book 1. Analysis of the New European Regulation on Electronic Communications” - Spanish only). The second one focuses on the transposition in detail of the new regulation to the Spanish legal framework (“Book 2. Transposing the New European Electronic Communications Regulating Framework in Spain” - Spanish only), while the third one, presented on July 13 at the Spanish Engineering Institute, described the main and innovative tool that the new framework introduced on the reference markets (“Book 3. Revision of the Definition and Analysis of the Reference Markets” - Spanish only).
In October 2004, the Chair presented the book “The Development of VoIP and its Regulatory Implications” (Spanish only), which analysed the impact of the different regulatory models for VoIP at a time when this technology is materialising and can acquire a decisive importance, particularly if its relationship with the deployment of broadband is considered.
The last activity of the Chair has been the release of two books of a series dedicated to studying the audiovisual sector, under the title "The Audiovisual Sector and its Evolution". In this sense, GRETEL 2005 continues with its long history of works in the converging scope of telecommunications, the audiovisual and Internet. The first book was presented in March 2, 2005 and was entitled “Television, Challenges and Opportunities” (Spanish only), and dealt with the opportunities and challenges shown at present by the audiovisual sector, and specifically television, underlining the regulatory model as well as the market. Before being presented, this work was provided, in December 2004, to the "Council for the Reform of State-Owned Media" (the so-called "Council of Wise") as a contribution of the COIT. The second book of this series, called "Exploiting audiovisual contents in the transition to new digital media" (Spanish only) was presented on February 15. The basic objective of this work is to provide an organised description of the scope of the contents as a critical link of the value chain in this converging sector, as well as explaining the challenges it faces in its predictable evolution and presents a series of scenarios that can appear in the future evolution of the models of content-exploitation on digital media.
Last, we must also underline the periodic collaboration of GRETEL in BIT magazine (published by the COIT, in Spanish only), with its latest articles : “Facing the regulatory development of the new LGTel” (February-March 2004), “Spam: a real threat for e-mail” (April-May 2004), “Latest news in radioelectric spectrum management: Secondary trade” (June-July 2004) and “Latest news on radioelectric spectrum management. Secondary trade (II). The GRETEL position facing the EC public consultation” (August-September 2004), "Programming patents and their situation in Spain" (October-November 2004), "VoIP and its regulatory implications" (December-January 2005) and "Creation rights in the digital world. A revision of Creative Commons" (February-March 2005), “Twelve ideas for reforming the audiovisual sector” (June-July 2005), “Digital right management. DRM Systems” (August-September 2005), “Contents and competition in telecommunications” (October-November 2005) and "The World Summit on the Information Society" (December 2005-January 2006).
Other works
Another task carried out by GRETEL is its contribution to several public consultations launched both at the national and European level. In this direction we can underline the recent contribution of GRETEL to the public consultation launched by the European Commission as regards the revision of the regulatory framework of electronic communications.
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