The Union should also persist in its attempt to get specific regional projects underway, especially in the field of communications, including the projects referred to in the Commission communication: the Baku-Nakhichevan and Yerevan-Yulfa railways, a fibre-optic telecommunications network along the main rail axes, improved communications between Georgia and Russia.

Under Directive 92/44/EEC, Member States must ensure that the telecommunications organizations make available certain types of leased lines to all providers of telecommunications services. However, the Directive provides only for such offer of a harmonized set of leased lines up to a certain bandwidth. Companies needing a higher bandwidth to provide services based on new high-speed technologies such as SDH (synchronous digital hierarchy) have complained that the telecommunications organizations concerned are unable to meet their demand whilst it could be met by the optic fibre ...[+++] networks of other potential providers of telecommunications infrastructure, in the absence of the current exclusive rights. Consequently, the maintenance of these rights delays the emergence of new advanced telecommunications services and therefore restricts technical progress at the expense of the users contrary to Article 90 (1) of the Treaty, in conjunction with point (b) of the second paragraph of Article 86 of the Treaty.

Moreover, at the time of the adoption of Directive 90/388/EEC, all telecommunications organizations were also in the course of digitalizing their network to increase the range of services which could be provided to the final customers. Today, coverage and digitalization are already achieved in a number of Member States. Taking into account the progress in radio frequency applications and the on-going heavy investment programmes, optic fibre-coverage and network penetration are expected to improve significantly in the other Member Stat ...[+++]es in the coming years.

14. These exclusive rights limiting access to the market also have the effect of restricting or preventing, to the detriment of users, the use of satellite communications that could be offered, thereby holding back technical progress in this area. Because their investment decisions are likely to be based on exclusive rights, the undertakings concerned are often in a position to decide to give priority to terrestrial technologies, whereas new entrants might exploit satellite technology. The telecommunications organizations have generally given preference to the development of optical-fibre ...[+++] terrestrial links, and satellite communications have been used chiefly as a technical solution of last resort in cases where the cost of the terrestrial alternatives has been prohibitive, or for the purpose of data broadcasting and/or television broadcasting, rather than being used as a fully complementary transmission technology in its own right. Thus the exclusive rights imply a restriction on the development of satellite communication, and this is incompatible with Article 90 of the Treaty, read in conjunction with Article 86.

On November 11, 1992, Siemens and Philips notified their intention to bring the optical fibre and telecommunications cable business of Philips under the control of two jointly controlled companies, one for optical fibres and one for telecommunications cables.

- earth and space-based telecommunications such as transmission networks, satellites, fibre optics, Integrated Digital Network (ISDN), data transmission, rural and mobile telephone systems,