The biggest issue constraining the growth of Telekom Austria is the weight and complexity of regulations, claimed the company’s CEO Hannes Ametsreiter in an interview with MWC Show Daily.

The exec maintained that only operators in Europe suffer from this high level of telecoms regulations, with the authorities not believing in market forces to provide adequate control. “Why not regulate the price of BMW’s?” noted Ametsreiter, frustrated by government and EU interference in the telecom sector when compared to other industries.

However, the CEO was undaunted and believed that the company could grow with mobile broadband acting as the driver. “I’d like to see every laptop connected to the mobile network, and I’m pleased to see the tablet developing as a new category needing wireless connectivity. There are already around 50,000 iPads in Austria.”

Meanwhile, the operator has plans to expand the deployment of its LTE network to cities other than Vienna. “Subscriber numbers, which are small at present, will increase once we have lower-priced LTE dongles that should become available by mid-year. These devices are currently very expensive.”

But Ametsreiter was clear that LTE wouldn’t greatly change the company’s approach to business. “It’s all about yield management. Fill the network with as many users as possible, even though they might have very different usage profiles.”