On February 6, 2003 The National Regulatory Authority for Communications (ANRC) launched for public consultation the projects of decisions regarding the obligations of the mobile telephony operators that were designated as operators with significant power on the market of the access to their own mobile telephony network as regards call terminations: „Cosmorom” S.A., „Mobifon” S.A., „Orange Romania” S.A. and „Telemobil” S.A..
This measure was taken as a result of the high interest showed by the European Commission and the EU regulators towards the market behavior of the mobile public telephony network operators and especially towards the level of call termination tariffs on mobile networks. Most of the Europeans regulators concluded that these tariffs are unreasonably high compared to costs. Therefore they searched for means of solving these problems caused by the lack of an effective market competition. With this purpose, the operators of mobile public telephony networks, designated as operators with significant power on the interconnection market (gross market), were imposed specific obligations.
S.C. „Mobifon” – SA and S.C. „Orange Romania” – SA are parties of a bilateral interconnection agreement, freely negotiated between them. The tariffs contained in this agreement are different from the tariffs stipulated in the agreements closed by both Mobifon and Orange with other operators. The tariffs currently charged by S.C. „Mobifon”- SA and S.C. „Orange Romania”- SA for calls that terminate in their own network are:
| Call originated in the network of: | Termination tariff in the network of „Orange România” – S.A. (peak hours) – USD cents/minute – | Termination tariff in the network of S.C. „Mobifon” – S.A. (peak hours) – USD cents/minute – |
| MOBIFON | 10 | – |
| ORANGE ROMÂNIA | – | 10 |
| ROMTELECOM | 12 | 12 |
| COSMOROM | 11 | 11 |
| TELEMOBIL | 12 | 12 |
Since the operators of mobile public telephony networks did not present the accounting data showing the costs of providing efficient interconnection services, ANRC considers that the tariffs currently charged are not cost oriented and discriminatory. This stand was also confirmed by the researches conducted by other regulators within UE.
ANRC decided to impose the mobile telephony operators the following obligations:
– „Cosmorom” – S.A. and „Telemobil” – S.A. shall be transparent (make public the interconnection tariffs), and shall provide certain services and grand access to certain facilities (such as transmission of identification data for the calling line) regarding the interconnection of its public mobile telephony network with the networks of other operators for call termination.
– „Mobifon” – S.A. and „Orange Romania” – S.A. shall be transparent and non-discriminative, shall keep separate accounting, provide certain services and grant access to certain facilities. Also, they shall base their tariffs on costs as regards the interconnection of the mobile public telephony network they operate with other public networks for calls termination.
Regarding the cost based tariffs, ANRC decided to gradually decrease the interconnection tariff, taking into consideration both the international practice and the arguments in favor of a minimum, proportionate, transparent and predictable regulation. This was decided with the purpose of encouraging the investments in electronic communications networks and services.
Thus, the interconnection tariffs for call termination charged by “Mobifon” – S.A. and „Orange Romania” – S.A. must be based on a LIRC calculation approved by ANRC. This method will be implemented by July 1, 2004.
Until this method is implemented, the tariffs charged by the two companies must respect certain limits:
– since the decision becomes active until December 31, 2003, the tariffs shall not exceed 11 USD cents /minute;
– since January 1, 2004 until the date when the interconnection tariffs are calculated using a LRIC cost calculation, then tariffs shall not exceed 10 USD cents/minute.
These tariffs correspond to peak hours.
The decision to gradually reduce the tariffs towards a real costs-oriented level, grants the operators the possibility to gradually adjust business plans, according to the obligations imposed by ANRC.
All operators shall make public the tariffs charged for all interconnection services regarding calls terminations within the mobile public telephony network that they operate. Also, they must send ANRC a copy of the closed interconnection agreements, no later than seven days since their closure.
„The National Regulatory Authority for Communications intends to ensure an effective competition on the electronic communications market by taking any necessary measures to prevent the abusive behavior of the operators with significant market power. Therefore, the regulation of the interconnection conditions with the mobile telephony networks turned into a priority after the market liberalization and after the regulation of interconnection with the fixed telephony public network. We imposed a more detailed set of obligations where the market required a more severe intervention, that is concerning the two big mobile telephony operators. These operators, due to the power they hold over the market, tend to have a discriminative behavior with respect to interconnection. As for Cosmorom and Telemobil, we considered imposing a smaller set of obligations, as we appreciate that any abuse attempt can be countered by the contract partners. If the market behavior of Cosmorom or Telemobil proves that the countering force of other operators is not capable of preventing the abuses, ANRC has the option of revising the regulation measures imposed to the two companies, accordingly”, declared Alexandrina Hîrtan, Vicepresident of ANRC.