By Jacqueline Bell

Law360, New York (November 25, 2009, 4:16 PM ET) -- The European Parliament has formally approved a telecommunications reform package aimed at boosting competition among telecommunications companies, adding new protections for consumer Internet usage and modernizing the use of the radio spectrum.

The European Union’s Telecommunications Commissioner Viviane Reding cheered the reforms, which the parliament overwhelmingly approved by a vote of 510 to 40 on Tuesday. She pointed in particular to the inclusion of a so-called “functional separation” provision, which will require dominant telecom operators to separate their infrastructure business from services that use that infrastructure....