Reports and Notes by AEDUE Members and Associates
on ECOMET-related difficulties to access essential data.

A. EU Countries

Belgium

Note dated March 13, 2000 from Harry Otten of Meteo Consult, The Netherlands:
If you look at radar prices all over Europe, it is amazing. For instance, Hungary wants 22.4 Euro per image if you show it on television. So if you would want to show all images on one television channel you would have to pay over 750,000 Euro which is 1/4 of the total budget for the whole Hungarian Met. Office. For Belgium we could calculate from their radar prices that (if they charge their television channel what they should do) the radar images on television account for 50% of their commercial turnover.

Note dated August 20,1999 from Harry Otten, Managing Director, Meteo Consult, The Netherlands:
"The Belgian weather service does not provide us with radar data though they have got their radars free from the National Lottery."

Denmark

Note dated May 31, 2000 from Harry Otten, Managing Director of Meteo Consult, The Netherlands
Other countries are still behaving very badly. Denmark apparently will sign the ECOMET treaty within the next six weeks and it is interesting to see what will happen then. They now for instance won't sell their radar data as 'it belongs to them'. I think Denmark will do its utmost to violate the ECOMET agreement.

Proposal dated May 15, 2000 by the Danish Meteorological Institute to Vejr ApS, Roskilde
(only essential parts translated from original text in Danish)

Prices for radar data
The prices for radar data can be divided into:

• the value of the information, i.e. the price for the data
• the delivery charge, which is the payment for DMI's effort to deliver the data
• the transfer cost, which is zero if the customer extracts the data

Furthermore the prices are dependent on the use of the data. The prices in the following and determined assuming that Vejr2 will use the data for meteorological guidance and/or for special forecasts for customers. It should be noted that the data continue to be the property of DMI, and should not be made public in any form. If data are forwarded to a third party, an agreement between the third party and DMI is required.

Radar images
The information value for a radar image from an individual radar is P = DKK 3.80 (EUR 0.51)
For purchase of radar images from one or several individual radars the price (information value) is:

1 - 500	N * P	(i.e. 500 images cost EUR 254)
500 - 5 000	(500+.890*(N-500))*P	(i.e. 5 000 images cost EUR 2 295)
......
more than 100 000	(52 515 + .411*(N-100 000))*P	(i.e.100 000 images cost EUR 52 515)

 

For purchase of radar composites the price (information value) is:

1 - 500	N * 1.188 * P	(i.e. 500 images cost EUR 303)
500 - 5 000	(594+1.058(N-500))*P	(i.e. 5 000 images cost EUR 2 728)
......
more than 25 000	(21 245 + .576*(N-25 000))*P	(i.e. 25 000 images cost EUR 21 245)

 

Delivery charges
When purchasing real-time data the delivery charge comprises the work time spent combined with the set-up. The amount is calculated using DMI's standard hourly tariff for development work, which as of 1 Jan. 2000 is DKK 720 (EUR 96.5). An amount for continuous supervision of the data transfer will be added.

Transfer costs
These are dependent on the chosen technical solution. DMI will have no transfer costs if Vejr extracts data from DMI's COM-server or ftp-server.

All prices are excluding VAT.

(signature)

P.S In addition it should be pointed out that DMI's home pages are continuously updated with current radar images every two hours.

Finland

Overview dated July 6, 2000 by Weather Service Finland Ltd
Overall the situation as regards the meteorological market in Finland is quite extraordinary, with three active players, the Finnish Meteorological Institute (FMI), the Swedish Meteorogical and Hydrological Institute (SMHI) and the private sector Weather Service Finland Ltd (WSF). SMHI even operates an office in Turku, following the discontinuation by FMI of its regional office in that city, whilst WSF at present is in charge of about half of the public weather services , including two of the four TV-networks and the road weather services.

On the other hand FMI still has total control of the observational and model data sets which are essential to all operators, and uses its dominating position in this area to the detriment of its competitors by means of limited data access, high prices with sudden excessive price increases and even data degradation for SMHI and WSF customers (see report below). In fact, having recently removed four additional stations for the list of data to be exchanged internationally, FMI now only makes available 25% of the Finnish SYNOPs for international exchange. In addition the international distribution of data has been reduced by as much as 10%, contrary to the ECOMET principles.

Even if FMI has nominally separated its public and commercial activities, this has so far not meant a legal and physical separation, i.e. the commercial unit continues to operate from the FMI headquarters in downtown Helsinki, with full on-line access to the various national and international data sets held by the institute.

Proposal as of June 2, 2000 by the Finnish Competition Authority to the Finnish Competition Council, signed by Matti Purasjoki, Director-in-Chief and Jussi Pääkkönen, Researcher:

Abuse of dominant market position by the Finnish Meteorological Institute

The Competition Authority proposes that the Competition Council:

1. Recognizes that the Finnish Meteorological Institute as a producer and distributor of meteorological data holds on the basis of §3 (2) of the Act of Competitive Restrictions a dominant position on the Finnish national market for meteorological data.

2. recognises that the Finnish Meteorological Institute has abused its dominant market position on the Finnish national market for meteorological data in a manner prohibited by §7 (1) and §7 (2) of the Act of Competitive Restrictions by reducing between June 1999 and December 1999 the quality of the radar images delivered for inclusion in the Scandinavian radar composites.

3. imposes on the Finnish Meteorological Institute because of the abuse of its dominant market position referred to above and on the basis of §8 of the Act of Competitive Restrictions a competition infringement fine, which is proposed by the Competition Authority to amount to 200,000 Finnish markka (EUR 33,637).

Regulations Applied: Act on Competition Restrictions (480/1992), Art. 3(2), Art. 7(1)-(2) and Art. 8.

Report dated Sep. 7, 1999 by Weather Service Finland Ltd Finnish Meteorological Institute degrades the quality of radar images and restricts data access

In the following, the background information is given on the incident resulting in the request for action sent to the Finnish Competition Authority on August 16th, 1999 concerning the Finnish Meteorological Institute (FMI), which Weather Service Finland Ltd (WSF) believes has abused its dominant position by deliberately adding erroneous information (ground echoes) on radar image data for the Scandinavian radar composite product included in the ECOMET Product Catalogue, and by refusing delivery of certain obervations.

Degradation of radar images
Since June 1998, WSF has bought the product of Scandinavian radar composite from the ECOMET Catalogue. The delivery is through the Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute, the data provider of WSF. In June, 1999, erroneous echoes started to appear in the area of the Finnish radar coverage, which WSF first thought were from natural sources. To our great surprise, our data provider let us know that FMI is adding this information to the correct radar pictures deliberately, thus reducing the quality of the radar composite over the Finnish area. WSF tried first to solve the problem by negotiating with FMI, but without success. FMI offered as their solution to sell WSF the correct pictures at a higher price. For their own radar customers, FMI has been delivering correct data throughout this incident.

WSF's customers also recognised the poor quality of the radar pictures during the summer, when the problem of extra ground clutter added in the pictures was exceptionally bad. In early August WSF got a request from one customer to pay some compensation. The current situation may also threaten some of WSF's contracts in the future, if the quality is not improved back to the normal level.

As this matter got so serious, WSF had no other alternative but approach Finnish Competition Authority, who recommended WSF to make a formal request for action. This was done on August 16th, 1999. The request also includes the information we have received from SMHI that ECOMET may in the future decide on higher prices by means of changing the pricing rule structure for radar pictures which may be another reason to accuse FMI on abuse of dominant position. So far WSF has not received any written confirmation on these new rules, though these have been requested from SMHI and ECOMET several times during 1998 and 1999.

Restrictions in data delivery
The second point in the request concerns FMI's unwillingness to put all observational data on the ECOMET catalogue. There are especially some automatic marine stations which WSF knows do exist but WSF have no way to buy that data at the moment. SMHI has been requesting these data for several months without success. This restrictive practice is certainly against ECOMET rules and also against WMO rules. These data would be very valuable for WSF next winter when WSF is expanding its services and is responsible for the Finnish road weather service, in particular.

During the negotiations it became very evident that FMI finds it very hard to live with the fact that WSF buys its data from SMHI and they are now trying these means also for the reason to force WSF to be their customer. This kind of action is further abuse of ECOMET rules and the Competition Law.

Germany

Note dated July,4 2000 by Dennis Schulze of MC-Wetter GmbH of Berlin
We asked DWD for an offer for data from their new high resolution LM (Lokales Modell) model. We wanted to have both the GRIB format and the plotted maps in graphical form. Their offer was to give us both but we would have to pay the data price for both products individually though the plotted maps are just another representation of the data.

Item provided June 29, 2000 by Meteofax Meteorological Services GmbH / Meteomedia AG

General information
The German government passed a new legal framework regarding the NMS that became effective January 1, 1999. The new act for the first time expressively entitles the NMS to undertake commercial activities and, at the same time, the NMS remains a tax-funded agency under the control of the Federal Ministry of Traffic with no legal or physical separation between public and commercial activities. Up to now, the experiences of the private sector with the implementation of the new act are very limited, and only limited information is given to independent private companies by either the NMS itself or the Ministry on any internal re-structuring or pricing policy.

As far as the data pricing structure is concerned, the Board of the NMS passed a new price list earlier this year. The price list replaces the former "list of fees" used for the sale of commercial products as well as for the sale of essential data. With respect to this change, NMS has terminated the existing licensing agreements ("data contracts") with Meteomedia AG and Meteofax Wetterdienste GmbH in mid-June and at the same time issued a new offer. While the new offer has to be analysed and the agreement to be re-negotiated, we cannot provide up-to-date information on the current policy towards private weather services.

Specific areas
In general, we could identify the same problem areas as already outlined in the contributions by MC-Wetter GmbH: Although the new legal framework of the German NMS expressively allows commercial activities, we do not see any effective steps towards a realistic calculation of prices for commercial products, whereas data prices for private competitors are far too high, sometimes prohibitively (especially in case of historical data). At the same time, the NMS charges only low prices for its own value-added products and services (and has more than once - like Kavouras reported above - promised to undercut competitors cost).

While working like a private entity, the German NMS at the same time fails to charge regularly calculated prices for its services, which is clearly reflected in the last budget: The total budget of Deutscher Wetterdienst was 634 Million Deutschmarks in 1999 (source: Federal Budget). This amount contained the obligations of the Federal Republic of Germany with respect to international organisations and projects (ECMWF, EUMETSAT, ESA, ECOMET) in an amount of 282 Million DM. The remaining 357 Million DM are the budget for NMS's regular activities. The total turnover arising out of "consumer orientated services" - excluding the fees to be paid to NMS for services under EUROCONTROL and other air security services - is only 25 Million DM (around 7% of the budget for regular activities). N.B.: Even the Swiss government, regarding its NMS as an example for "new public management" instructed the NMS under comparable circumstances to increase its turnover up to 37% of the budget.

Besides the aforementioned general problems, resulting out of the non-existing separation between public and commercial activities, we are confronted with the following major problems in our daily activities:

1. Synoptic data / Time of delivery

   In general, most of the surface observation can be purchased from the NMS. As far as German SYNOP data are concerned, Meteomedia/Meteofax are provided with those data about hh:05 earliest and hh:15 latest, whereas NMS's commercial branches have access to those data about 10 minutes earlier and also provide their customers with those data. The time of delivery may be of high importance, e.g. in case of up-to-date radio news, that are broadcasted regularly at hh:00.

   Moreover, some special observation outputs (like the ones generated by highway stations run by the German Länder) are not available to private sector companies, but used by NMS (see also contributions by MC-Wetter).

2. Radar data / Time of delivery

   The main problem concerning the availability of radar products is the time of delivery. In general, those products are provided by commercial or non-commercial websites free of charge earlier than on the regular channel via NMS under an existing licensing agreement.

3. METAR & TAF / Refusal of delivery

   Up to now, German NMS refused to deliver domestic and foreign METAR and TAF data to private services. NMS referred to property rights of national aviation agencies (due to the fees those have to pay for meteorological aviation services to NMS) as a reason for the refusal. In Germany, the Federal Aviation Office referred to decisions to be taken by the respective NMS and further reported not to have access to the data. Meteomedia/Meteofax were not informed of any changes in the data policy concerning METAR and TAF data up to now. At the same time, at least the German NMS widely uses METAR observation for commercial purposes, like services for radio stations and newspapers.

   A similar situation exists in Switzerland, and - according to the note by Meteo Consult listed below - also in The Netherlands.

4. General data / Missing information on delivery problems

   Unlike other customers - like universities and/or NMS's commercial branch - Meteomedia/Meteofax are not usually informed in case of missing data and/or delivery at a later date. As a consequence, we have to spend more time to identify missing data and are forced to take care of delivery at a later date by ourselves.

5. Severe weather warnings / Refusal of direct delivery

   German NMS in various cases promoted the delivery of severe weather warnings - if any - free of charge as a special service towards customers. Although Meteomedia/Meteofax are customers of NMS's data department for almost ten years, we were not included in the respective distribution structures for severe weather warnings. NMS began to publish severe weather warnings on its website after almost missing storm "Lothar" in Dec. 1999, but still is not able to provide its private competitors with this information directly.

6. General data / Preferential treatment of certain private weather services

   As already outlined in the general remarks, the German NMS under its new legal framework is entitled to cooperate with private companies as part of its commercial activities. NMS in Germany has widely used this option, especially in the field of radio and newspaper customers. As far as we can see at the moment, those cooperative arrangements are formed in a way that discriminates against other private weather services without an NMS cooperation due to different access and pricing for the necessary data.

   The most obvious example is the cooperation between DWD and More&More Communications GmbH (MMC) related to the product "WetterMax". "WetterMax" is a software for radio stations that allows on-line access to weather forecasts and data. DWD in this cooperation is responsible for content provision only, whereas MMC handles marketing and support. As a result, DWD in this venture provides MMC and/or the respective customers with data under a pricing structure that is not covered by the price list that applies to any other customer.

7. Foreign competitors within Germany

   We do not have the impression that new structures of commercial activities among the European NMS will lead to a substantial rise of the level of competition in the sense that one NMS is providing services for customers out-of-area.

   So far, we only know about one case, in which Met.Office of Great Britain issued an offer for meteorological services to a German customer. The German NMS is reported to have intervened to prevent Met. Office from providing any services in Germany. We did not receive further information on this case and cannot exclude the possibility that this, like any effort of competitive behaviour among NMS, interferes with the regulations adopted in Annex 2 to WMO resolution 40 (Cg XII), according to which (para. 8)

   "an NMS receiving a request to provide service in another country should refer the request back to the NMS in that country, i.e. to the local NMS. In the event that the local NMS is unable to provide the service for lack of facilities or other legitimate reasons, the external NMS may seek to establish a collaborative arrangement with the local NMS to provide the service."

   Provided that European NMS have accepted those terms even regarding the targets of ECOMET, no relevant level of competition will be reached within the market. Thus, we were not able to observe commercial activities of ECOMET members other than the local NMS in Germany and Switzerland. At the same time, the "threat" of foreign weather services providing services in Germany was one issue in the legislative process towards the new legal framework in Germany, serving as a major challenge for the German NMS and a major reason for continued commercial activities without any effective separation.

Report by Kavouras Inc., received 3-Feb-00

In 1996, Kavouras was trying to renew an existing contract for weather data with one of its customers in Germany, the SAT1 television network. SAT1 had Kavouras equipment that it used to produce its daily weather shows. In addition to the physical equipment located at SAT1, Kavouras also supplied a satellite delivered data stream, which contains weather data used by the equipment. Satellite data, weather maps and charts, forecasts, and weather observations are among the kinds of information supplied via this satellite link, all of which are collected by Kavouras in the United States, and transmitted to customers in Europe, Asia, and North America.

One of SAT1's new requirements in 1996 was for extensive meteorological observations above and beyond what was available for international exchange (GTS), and thus available to Kavouras in the United States. Kavouras spoke with several ECOMET members about the availability and cost of such data. The logical choice for a source of this data was DWD, the German Weather Service.

However, they were completely unresponsive to all requests, verbal and written, for cost and availability of this data. Another country would only make the data available an hour or more after the observations were taken, making the data virtually useless.

Finally, Kavouras did find a source of timely data, whose cost was very expensive (approximately $10000 USD/month), but sanctioned by the ECOMET pricing policy. When we went back to SAT1, we were informed that our competitor was none other than DWD. Furthermore, DWD told SAT1 that they knew what Kavouras's price for this data was (since they set the ECOMET price), and they guaranteed SAT1 that they would undercut Kavouras's cost, no matter what Kavouras charged. Not surprisingly, SAT1 took the best financial deal, and Kavouras lost the business.

Kavouras had similar experiences in Germany and France, selling against the national meteorological service, which assures potential customers that it will undercut whatever price for data, is proposed. These kinds of anti-competitive practices (using their monopoly position to fix artificially high prices, and then using their knowledge of those prices to undercut competitive bids) have forced Kavouras out of the European market.

Report by MC-Wetter GmbH, received December 15, 1999

I would like to point you to a major problem in Germany at the moment: The German Weather Service is going to sell their data and services under a new price list from January 1st 2000 on. So far we have received no information whatsoever about changes in the pricing system. As far as I know this is a problem of the political level as the authorities of the Federal Republic as well as all 16 States (Bundesländer) must agree to the price list. It is hard to make a budget for next year and own price calculations if you do not know how much you will pay for data next month...

Item provided on August 20, 1999 by MC-Wetter Meteorological Services GmbH, German:

Deutscher Wetterdienst (DWD) and its Economic Games with Germany's Tax Payers' Money

Although independent weather services were able to gain a bigger share of the weather market in Germany, the DWD as the state authority still acts like a monopolistic octopus trying to defend its position in the market by all means at its disposal. This behaviour is connected with a waste of tax payers' money and a destruction of the market. Hereafter you will find some samples from the daily business which should give a better view of the situation:

• the advertising expenses for DWD are well above EUR 50,000 p.a. (source: Press Release shown in Horizont.net on July 14th, 1999). It is doubtful that these costs are taken into account when controlling the efficiency of DWD. Furthermore the failure in selling their products does not justify such a large budget for marketing.

• DWD mixes investments, personnel and other business expenses for use in public and commercial activities, making it virtually impossible to get a clear view of the DWD work. Statements such as "the meteorologist is on duty anyway, so why bother about an additional interview by a radio station" are rather common when talking about such issues with DWD representatives.

• DWD does not release figures on how much money is earned with what kind of commercial activities. This kind of behaviour is wellknown and justified for independent companies, but the state should have a different information policy (Recommendation of the European Council in respect of access to information of the public administration, 1981).

• Prices are mostly calculated to generate a net loss or in some cases a break-even. This leads to unhealthy price dumping and ruinous competition. Samples are winter road services or media services for which data is given away for very low prices.

• DWD is not obliged to pay Value Added Tax, thereby gaining a 16% advantage when selling products to end users. A request to change this procedure was answered by an invitation to use legal means to put pressure on DWD.

• DWD still uses its strong market position in some sectors (agriculture, winter road services) to totally block any competition. Co-operation with associations in these sectors such as the German Farmers' Association with its 560,000 members make it hardly possible for even large companies to enter the market.

Germany should decide what the DWD shall be: a state authority concentrating on research, international relations and core systems such as models and networks for nationwide measurements or a commercially run company which does not use tax money to operate in the market. Examples from other countries and other market segments (telecommunications, energy, etc.) show how such a division can take place.

Greece

Report as of July 5, 2000 from Prof. G. Kallos, Innovative Technologies Centre and Univ. of Athens:

The Hellenic National Meteorological Service (HNMS) has as a policy not to provide regular meteorological observations to anyone. They provide climatological values instead. This creates major problems to Research Institutes, Universities and of course private companies. The only data easily available from the HNMS is the primary satellite data (METEOSAT or AVHRR) since this is in the agreement to purchase the receiving station. If there is a request for data, the HNMS replies after several months and the data availability is in printed form which makes practically not useable. There are several such cases reported from Greek Universities and private companies in the past. Nobody in the country is able to get real time observations.

The most serious violation is the uncontrolled co-operation of several HNMS employees with private TV channels and radio stations. Usually, they advise the stations to subscribe for the minimum amount of information from the HNMS (the cheap ECOMET package which is at the range of tens of EU per month!) and they provide (illegally) all the additional information needed for their operations.

This kind of co-operation has killed all the attempts from private companies up to now to open business on the field of meteorology in the country. The HNMS employees are doing private bussines taking advantage of their position. The most recent incidence is the signed agreement between the HNMS and a private pay-phone company. The contract signed provides exclusively the rights for distribution of the real time meteorological information to this company (NEWSPHONE HELLAS). In addition, the HNMS has reduced the information freely available through the public telephone service. Practically, this means that a citizen in the country has to pay almost 10 times more for a weather information, which was previously available with a cost of an in-city call.

The UK Meteorological Office provides daily weather forecasts to a consortium of companies, which got the project to construct the bridge between Rio and Antirio in Western Greece. In spite of the ECOMET arrangement, HNMS has not been informed about this kind of business.

As a Research Group at the University of Athens we have serious problems on getting even past data from the HNMS. Almost two years ago, the HNMS accepted our application to get an access at the ECMWF MARS database, through internet (access of data after 10 days). Because of several restrictions imposed in the agreement, we are always afraid to use such data. Alternatively, we have found sources in USA to get such data for various applications like environmental impact analyses, consulting in construction, marine applications (foresnic operations etc). The most serious problem was created five years ago when I asked for ECMWF gridded data and observations (surface and upper-air) in order to provide the required model simulations at the framework of the DG-XI project Auto-Oil I for which I was a contractor. I never got an answer in my request made at HNMS. Finally I got the data from the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) at no cost. At the report delivered to DG-XI there is acknowledgement to NCAR for rescuing this EU project.

Netherlands

Note dated May 31, 2000 from Harry Otten, Managing Director of Meteo Consult

Thanks for your mail. In the Netherlands things are more and more organised in a reasonable way though we still have to fight against KNMI who is making much more data available on the Internet than agreed between KNMI and Service Providers. There are also signs that KNMI is approaching customers of the Service Providers again to give them all the information for free.

General
In October 1997 the National Meteorological Service in the Netherlands (KNMI) made a calculation what the price the meteorological workstation data would be if the commercial part were an independent organisation. The total price was EUR 975,000, including EUR 160,000 for the ECMWF products. However, for the commercial branch of KNMI there was only EUR 181,500 (or 22.26% of the above total cost) for these data in the books of KNMI, even if the public branch and the commercial branch were working together in the weather room using the same data.

Note dated March 13, 2000 from Harry Otten, Managing Director of Meteo Consult, The Netherlands

In 1999 KNMI decided to change price for observational data. The price per synoptic observation changed from 0.18 Euro to 0.274 Euro from the 1st of January 2000. Through this 52% increase the Netherlands changed from a cheap to a more expensive country in Europe. As far as we know the costs of the infrastructure did not change. If you want to buy all Dutch observational data the total price is Euro 50.000 after about 50 %. discount. If you are working as a professional meteorological organisation you need that type of data. Also HIRLAM data became more expensive. Radar data from the Netherlands changed also in price but now positive for the market, it became cheaper.

KNMI has a value added service forecast product, made for their own use and available for the service providers. The product (regional forecast for 38 stations in Holland) had a price of about 6,000 Euro in 1999 and changed in 2000 to 40,000 Euro for only 6 stations, i.e. the new unit price is 42 times higher than the previous one.

In total we experience prices of data as much to high for private weather companies. Compared to the commercial branches of National Meteorological Offices who can use all available data, models, observations, etc. the private companies cannot compete. There should be an investigation about the price-system NMS's are using for their commercial branch.

KNMI will not deliver METAR data as that ICAO owns type of data in their view. So no aviation data is available for the professional Dutch meteorological market, unless you use the Internet, which KNMI thinks is illegal.

Portugal

Message dated May 16, 2000 from Paulo B. Oliveira, University of Lisbon

I'm a Physical Oceanographer recently graduated at the University of Lisbon. It was with great interest I've read your recent article on the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, calling to the attention for the incredible European policy on the use of Meteorology data. I never understood why everybody on the European scientific community complains about the policies of the NMS's in Europe but did not publicly express those complaints. I hope that changes in policy are, "like the weather itself", a non-linear process and that your article will excite some kind of ressonant mode so that changes occur very fast.

Spain

Notes as of April 28, 2000 from Tomas Molina, Audiovisual Meteorology Services (SAM), Barcelona

1. The pricing by the National Meteorological Institute (INM) for meteorological products is not clear and (in most cases) out of the market. In my view this forces us to use American products and the services of American companies.

2. INM wants to charge us one million Euro per year for 3-hourly Spanish SYNOPs at 35 stations.

3. INM is very slow for dealings: it takes five weeks to get an answer to a communication by fax.

4. There is a 15% reduction of cost for the `accepted' 15% level of failures in data delivery.

5. There is no arbitration of ECOMET in Spain, and the 9% limitation has never been considered.

6. There is no separation between INM and its commercial activities.

7. ECOMET has really damaged the quantity and quality of meteorological information for the Spanish society.

Sweden

Letter dated Nov. 29, 1999 from Hans Sandebring, General Director, Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute to Pirkko Saarikivi, Managing Director of Weather Service Finland Ltd
You are right about the pricing rules when ECOMET was established but it is important to bear in mind that the price levels were established regarding the service providers to creat value dded services and that no redistribution of these data and products was allowed.

In order to open in the ECOMET rules for the obvious need for redistribution of data and products inside a value added service, ECOMET has established complementary rules, which take into account the intellectual property rights claimed by the originators of data or products or on slightly processed such information. Thus, rules for "Internet broadcast licence (from 1 Jan. 2000)" have been created and the definition of value added services has been modified in order to sustain the application of those rules. The extra licences are needed for redistribution of images (from radar, satellite, direct NWP-output) and in case of database services.

It is important to stress that the main reason for ECOMET, by introducing the new licences, has been to protect the intellectual property rights of the originators of meteorological basic information and as a consequence compensate them for the further use outside the control of the originator. The initial principle on price level for internal use by service providers has not been changed. On the contrary the introduced new licence fees have been anticipated to be transferred to the customers of the service provider using the information. In the case of "Internet licence fee" the fee is connected directly to each broadcaster, while in the case of "Redistribution licence" the fee is constructed as a one-time fee, being it up to the service provider to divide the fee among its users of the licensed information.

For Weather Service Finland the licence agreement with SMHI so far has been for internal use only. Concurrently with WSF attracting more customers, who need images distributed to them, the licence for som items may need to include also a redistribution licence. As a consequence the total licence fee will be considerably higher, I agree, but it should be obvious to be compensated from your customers, in the case the information really is valuable to them.

Referring to the above clarification I can not give any detailed comments to the figures stated in your letter, the comparisons are in my opinion maybe not relevant even if the real change of cost for you of course is relevant. The raise in cost for the Scandinavian composite is due to a higher price of the high-quality Finnish radar information. As already said, the extended licence rules for different ways of redistribution only aim to compensate the originators for the further use, anticipating tht the service provider will be ablt to transfer that specific cost to its customers. The experience of applying these rules is, however, not very wide. If any deep inconvenience will arise for your company in practice when applying the rules, SMHI is prepared to discuss that and, if found relevant, propose changes of the ECOMET rules or the application of the rules.

Letter dated Nov. 11, 1999 from Pirkko Saarikivi, Managing Director of Weather Service Finland Ltd to Hans Sandebring, General Director, Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute

I received yesterday a new price list for Nordic radar products and a calculation of the information price for the Nordrad composite which we have ordered from SMHI since the summer of last year. This information is an essential facility and vital for our business, especially when providing the road weather services in Finland, used to secure the life and property of Finnish road users.

The new pricing rules indicate that in the worst case, the annual price form this data would be EUR 125,000. Can you please send me as soon as possible your statement on this huge rise (effectively about 950% in our case) in the price level. In particular, please state your justification on the fact that just one single item in the ECOMET catalogue would cost a private weather service provider 18% (more than one sixth) of its total turnover. I may not need to remind you that when ECOMET was established, the pricing rules and the price levels were established on the principle that the total value of data for the service provider must not exceed one ninth (11%) of the company's turnover.

United Kingdom

Letter dated Nov. 8, 1999 from Trevor Pitt, Manager of Noble Denton Weather Service Ltd

"I am very aware of the problems associated with the dissemination and purchase of meteorological data from ECOMET. In fact Noble Denton Weather Services Limited accepted long ago that ECOMET data supply was too expensive for the type of work we undertake and have had to modify the work we do because of it. We have used US data for the last 5 years in varying forms and although it has stood us in good stead we now need to progress up a level or two and would very much like to make more use of European data. I have approached the UK Met office on several occasions, but each time we have felt that the cost of data exceeds the cost we can value add and on-pass to our clients. Times are changing though and it now seems that some form of `common sense' is being applied to the costing of data and its supply (ever since UK Met office outstations have had to purchase their data). As a consequence of the above I have few details I can add as I have given up on the occasions I have tried, owing to the cost of the data being about double the cost of the sale price of the forecast!"

B. non-EU Countries (with the NMS as ECOMET member)

Hungary

Note dated March 13, 2000 from Harry Otten, of Meteo Consult, The Netherlands

If you look at radar prices all over Europe, it is amazing. For instance, Hungary wants 22,4 Euro per image if you show it on television. So if you would want to show all images on one television channel you would have to pay over 750,000 Euro which is 1/4 of the total budget for the whole Hungarian Meteorological Institute.

Note dated August 20, 1999 from Harry Otten, Managing Director of Meteo Consult, The Netherlands

In Hungary we negotiated some time ago about the price of radar images to use for our customer in Budapest. They wanted to charge 5% of their total budget for hourly radar images (ca. EUR 100,000). Afterwards they made an offer to our customer for everything: graphical system, data including satellite and radar, studio, scripts etc. etc. for far less than the above prices quoted to us for the radar images alone.

Iceland

Report as of July 6, 2000 from Björn Erlingsson, COB and founder of Halo ehf.

Halo ehf is a private company established in 1995 and has devoted its activities into research and development on operational environmental predictions within the field of atmospheric and ocean sciences. In doing so marketable product development in the field of weather forecasting has been addressed in order to establish a revenue stream for making the company into a sustainable organization. Since founded the company has been involved in 6 research and development contracts in its field of specialization partly reimbursed by the European Commission through the 4-th and 5-th Framework Programme.

The company established and is operating the first operational numerical weather forecast system in Iceland (see: http://www.theyr.is/). Furthermore, the company has developed, implemented and is currently operating a multi-linguistic weather information service in cooperation with the EuroSeek search engine and web directory (see: weather.euroseek.net) which is truly unique in Europe.

Halo ehf has addressed Icelandic Authorities and domestic operators of ECOMET on establishing relationship for provision and access to different categories of data:

• public domain data at retrieval cost

• licensed ECOMET data at tariff cost

• ECMWF operational data for research and product development.

The contacts have been through various channels both direct and to superior authorities, i.e. the Department of Environment in Iceland. The contacts made have been exhaustive explanations of purpose and aims for the activities through use of:

• formal letters by writing and registered mail

• quasi formal e-mails and

• informal oral telephones.

The responses and treatment has been along the following lines:

- no reply or declaring our requests as non valid

- appointment of non-responsive agents for consideration and

- exorbitant delivery cost for public domain products.

These can be sustained by documents and letters if so needed. The ECOMET agents in Iceland where also contacted in the excess of 10 weeks ago and asked if they would like to explain or clarify further the past practices. They have not answered the letter.

It is my opinion and judgment of the situation that the type of activity Halo ehf is pursuing is considered a threat by the current establishment. The loyalty towards the colleagues abroad and misjudgment of the implications for those actions has also had it's role and sometimes put forward as the ruling factor. The fundamental aim for the AEDUE activity is to have those practices verified if legally valid and ruled out if they can be questioned in the light the principles of:

• single economic area the EEA set of rules,

• non favorable practices of state subsidiced organizations and

• sustaining of monopoly and market trust with public data.

Furthermore, the present impudent way of responding to market activities has also resulted in contractual arrangements in Iceland that may be questioned as legally valid and is only mentioned here, not claimed. The Icelandic Met Office is favoring a company established and owned by group of its employees to become as appointed agents for dealing with preparation of data products for the Icelandic State Television Company. If that is the case the director of the organization and others are jeopardizing their posts, which prohibits public authorities to become interested in trying out the case. This company is not a member of the AEDUE Members Group and could also be contacted for verification of current ECOMET practices in Iceland as their story may sound different than Halo ehf.

In addition to the above it can be mentioned that the International treaty on the WMO and it's different agendas, eg. the No. 40 is extensively violated by the above practices. These practices are truly inhibiting the private sector to operate on the value added product and service market in the field of environmental predictions. It has been recognized by the governments of the world [UN] that these practices are not in the favor of development advancement and utilization of the associated scientific knowledge and technology. It is therefore impossible to continue to let the interest of few individuals in small region of the world, i.e. Europe rule out the interests of the global community and the public interests in those countries. The when and how this comes to an end is the only remaining questions in my opinion.

Norway

Note dated July 7,2000 from Siri Margrethe Kalvig, Storm Weather Center A/S:

METAR & TAF / Refusal of delivery
Up to now, the Norwegian NMS (DNMI) refuses to deliver domestic and foreign METAR and TAF data to private services. Similar to the comments from Germany, DNMI refers to property rights of national aviation agencies as a reason for the refusal. Again similar to Germany, the Civil Aviation Authority in Norway refers to decisions taken by DNMI while further reporting not to have access to the data. At the same time, the Norwegian NMS (DNMI) widely uses METAR observations for commercial purposes.

Note dated May 8,2000 from Siri Margrethe Kalvig, Storm Weather Center A/S:

ECMWF engages strongly in seasonal forecasting. Only the NMS's and academic institutions have access to these experimental results. We do not oppose such limitations of experimental climate- and seasonal forecasts, as long as these limitations also apply to the respective commercial bodies of the NMS's. Unfortunately we have witnessed on several occasions abuse by the NMS of this limitation by either secretly or deliberately leaking such information to the commercial market in order to gain a competitive advantage, while at the same time denying access to this information to independent service provides. This is clearly in contradiction of ECOMET regulations.

Switzerland

9.9.1999: Competition Commission: SMI discriminated against private weather service
(translation from original Swiss Competition Commission ruling in German)

The Swiss Meteorological Institute (SMI) misused its market controlling position by making a discriminatory quote to the private weather service Meteotest. In an investigation ending on September 6th 1999, the Swiss Competition Commission (WeKo) concluded that this was illegal under cartel laws.

The SMI collects a variety of meteorological data for Switzerland in its function as state-financed weather service. Some of this data is then sold from a position of market dominance to private providers of commercial weather services.

The WeKo concluded in its report published on September 6th 1999, that the SMI discriminated against Meteotest in favour of the Swiss Society for Radio and Television (SRG), in their quote for data delivery. For data which the SRG obtains for SFr. 100'000, Meteotest would have had to pay more than twice this sum. Such a massive price difference was from a technical point of view unjustified and in contravention of cartel laws.

In competition with the private sector, the SMI also processes meteorological data for commercial weather services of its own. The SMI was accused of discriminating against third parties regarding access to such data to the advantage of its own commercial services. This could not be properly scrutinised as detailed internal accounting will not be introduced until the year 2000. In order to prevent discrimination in future, the SMI were placed under obligation to provide meteorological products and services to various third parties and itself to the same conditions. Thus, the WeKo confirmed the precautionary measures it introduced against the SMI last November.

The potential for counter-competitive behaviour by the SMI, will exist as long as it continues to provide state-financed basic services at the same time as offering commercial services in competition with private providers. A similar danger exists in all other state-financed concerns, which are simultaneously active in liberal markets. The WeKo will closely follow the behaviour of these concerns in the future.

Contact persons:
Prof. Roland von Büren, President: +41-79/667 9015
Dr. Patrick Ducrey, Deputy Director: +41-31/324 9678 & +41-79/345 0144

Note provided June 29, 2000 by Meteomedia AG

METAR & TAF / Refusal of delivery

Like its German and Dutch counterparts, Swiss NMS refuses to deliver domestic and foreign METAR and TAF data to private services. Swiss NMS cancelled the previous delivery of METAR data in 1996 and referred to property rights of national aviation agencies (due to the fees those have to pay for meteorological aviation services to NMS) as a reason for the refusal. Swiss NMS told us that the delivery of METAR would interfere with ICAO regulations on OPMET licenses and with regulations by the Swiss Federal Office for Civil Aviation, according to which OPMET data are only delivered to users who pay "flight security fees" for meteorological aviation services. Meteomedia was not informed of any changes in the data policy concerning METAR and TAF data up to now.

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