27.06.2003
On Friday, June 27 2003, took place the official launching of the territorial Office that represents the National Regulatory Authority for Communications (ANRC) in Suceava county. Alexandrina Hîrtan, Vice-president of ANRC, along with the President of the Suceava County Council, Gavril Mîrza and Mayor Marian, as well as other representatives of ANRC and local authorities took part in the event. The launching was meant as a reunion for the electronic communications networks and services providers and for the postal services providers from Suceava.
In the opening of the event, Alexandrina Hîrtan talked about the role of ANRC on the Romanian electronic communications and postal services market, and presented the actual situation of this sector, with concrete references to the local realities. The ANRC Vice-president showed that ANRC grants Suceava county special attention, because it is the second largest county in Romania, and communications are less developed than in other regions because of the large distances, of the geographical characteristics and the existence of many isolated communities.
The Vice-president of the National Regulatory Authority for Communications presented the liberalization of communications and the new regulatory legislative framework in the field, emphasizing the opportunities thus created for the development of the market. „ANRC deals with the insufficient development of communications in your county in two manners: by encouraging the competition and creating proper conditions for the entry on the market of new operators that may invest in the less developed areas, but also by preparing the implementation of the universal service. The Law on universal service and users’ rights relating to electronic communications networks and services was conceived in the spirit of the acquis communautaire and of the principle that access to communications is a fundamental right of every citizen of the 21st century”, declared Alexandrina Hîrtan.
The benefits of the universal service for the users will consist of affordable tariffs, a guaranteed level of quality of the telephony services, but especially the extension of the area in which the users may benefit from telephony services, may that be by access to a public pay phone. Among the operators present in the reunion, there were representatives of local communities that associated their businesses, in order to offer to their co-citizens cable television services and who expressed their intention to modernize and extend their infrastructures in order to allow the provision of telephony and Internet access services in the villages where they already provide broadcasting services.
Alexandrina Hîrtan showed the availability of ANRC to offer technical consultancy, through its professionals, for such projects, answering to concrete requests, and, at the same time organizing periodical regional seminars dedicated to the small operators whishing to provide communications services in isolated communities.
The Legal Director of ANRC, Vlad Cercel, presented the practical aspects of the interaction with ANRC of the electronic communications services and networks providers and postal services providers, giving a detailed description of the mechanisms for obtaining the general authorization for the provision of electronic communications and networks and postal services, the numbering licenses and of the interconnection to the network of the national telephony operator’s network. Vlad Cercel underlined in his speech the availability of the authority to answer to any requests from the providers, and to support them, as well as the important role that the territorial offices have in solving these requests as efficiently as possible and within a short time period.
With 33 companies that notified their intention to provide electronic communications services, Suceava county ranks 13 among the Romanian counties, in a classification of the notified companies.