A spokesman for E.U. commissioner Neelie Kroes, who oversees the telecom sector, declined to comment on Wednesday.
"Service fees for telecom have declined largely due to the introduction of foreign competition, from the likes of [Norway's] Telenor and [the U.K.'s] Orange.
During 2005, for example, the number of fixed telephone lines operated by Verizon, America's second-largest telecoms firm, declined by 8%.
"It's not fair that they take your house away from you if you can't pay your mortgage, but give billions to the banks for unclear reasons," said 44-year-old telecom company employee Fabia, who declined to give her surname.
Investors were hoping that Lucent's declining telecom-equipment business finally had bottomed out.
But once the HTC Desire was welcomed by global consumers and telecom operators at the time, Samsung "strategically declined" to supply its AMOLED displays to the smartphone maker, Tong said at a local forum on mobile broadband.
Google spokeswoman Marsha Wang said the planned ceremony with local telecom carrier China Unicom was postponed but declined to give a reason or say when the launch might be rescheduled.
Much of the biggest gains came from energy stocks, which benefited from a rebound in oil prices, and from utilities and telecom companies, which became more attractive as bond yields declined.
John Clancy, a spokesman for Mr. De Gucht, said the commissioner was not available for an interview and declined to comment on the statements of the telecom equipment makers.
Over the past 30 years the price of computer processing power has declined by an annual average of 30% in real terms; telecoms prices have been plunging at a similar pace over the past decade.Information processing and telecoms witness vividly to the effect of sharp price falls.
