On Tuesday, July 16, 2003, the National Regulatory Authority for Communications (ANRC) published on its website The Official Record of the Postal Services Providers, which can be consulted on the Internet page of the institution. In this manner ANRC makes available to the public information on the companies that have the right to provide postal services on grounds of the general authorization regime or of the individual licence and on the services they intend to provide.
The general authorization regime allows the provision of postal services that are not included in the scope of the universal service. Any legal person that intends to provide postal services on grounds of the general authorization regime has to notify ANRC with respect to his intention. On the date when the requester is registered in the Official record of the postal services providers, but not later than 45 days after ANRC has received the notification, he is granted the right to provide postal services and can begin its activity. The individual licence is granted by ANRC on a 10 year period to the companies that intend to provide postal services included in the scope of the universal service, placing upon them specific rights and obligations, additional to those placed on grounds of the general authorization regime. The deadline for granting the individual licence or for communicating the decision to refuse the request for granting the licence is 90 days from the registration date.
The General Authorization and Licence Section within ANRC centralized in its database a number of 95 companies that notified under the General Authorization Regime. From these, 93 companies received standard certificates, which proves the conformity of the submitted documents and the right to provide the services specified in the notification. So far, ANRC received and solved only one request for obtaining an individual licence, from the Romanian National Post Company.
The data on all those companies are comprised in the Official record of the postal services providers. The data will be permanently updated, and the number of providers included in the record will change, increasing as the General Authorization and Licence Section within ANRC receives new notifications and requests for granting the individual licence or decreasing in case ANRC withdraws the companies’ right to provide services or they renounce this right. The registration of notifications will continue during ANRC’s activity, and the Record will remain available online.
The Official record was conceived so that one can search a certain commercial society after its name, the city where its office is located or after the postal services it offers the consumers (services within the scope of the universal service, services with or without added value etc.). Also, the providers may be selected function of the special services provided.
„The official record of the postal services providers is a new source of information that the National Regulatory Authority for Communications makes available for the consumers, but it is also an instrument for the companies that operate within the postal services sector across the country. The data comprised in this record, together with the information from the Official Record of the Electronic Communications Networks and Services Providers published by ANRC in February, will be the basis of a complex guide for the Romanian communications services consumers, on which our specialists have already started working”, declared Alexandrina Hirtan, ANRC Vice-president.