Monday, July 4, 2005, the headquarters of the National Regulatory Authority for Communications hosted the meeting of the Consultative Council, a body that facilitates dialogue between ANRC representatives and the representatives of the companies in the field, their professional associations and the consumer protection associations. The meeting was also attended by representatives of the Council for Competition, the National Authority for Consumer Protection and the National Association for Consumer Protection and Promotion of Products and Services in Romania. The topics on the agenda included the national program aimed at installing telecentres in localities in the rural areas, the designation of the operator having significant market power on the market of calls at a fixed location to mobile public telephone networks for legal persons, the imposing of obligations to the operator having significant market power on the relevant specific retail markets, as well as the adoption of the National Management Plan for the Frequency Spectrum of the Local Loop and Sub-loop.
Access to Telephony Services – Telecentres
”The implementation of universal service by means of installing telecentres represents a priority for us, since it creates the necessary conditions for national development and for observing the commitments taken in front of the European Union” ANRC President, Dan Cristian Georgescu, declared during the meeting. Further, the Vice-president of ANRC, Alexandrina Hirtan, mentioned that the representatives of the European Commission showed significant interest in the means of universal service implementation used in Romania, considering that all newly entered European Union member states search for viable solutions in order to provide all their citizens with access to a minimum set of electronic communications services.
Taking into consideration the above reasoning, the meeting debated the documents for creating the procedural framework for the direct involvement of mayoralties in the management of telecentres. Following the presentation of the comment synthesis, the implementation period for one telecentre was extended to 120 days, the previous term being of maximum 75 days.
Protecting End-User’s Rights on the Retail Markets
Following the designation of S.C. Romtelecom S.A. as provider with significant market power on the relevant specific retail markets, ANRC submitted for debate to the members of the Consultative Council the Draft Decision of the President of ANRC on imposing obligations to the provider having significant market power on the relevant specific retail markets. This decision aims at preventing the appearance of anti-competition practices by means of which the provider having significant market power on the relevant specific retail markets may breach the end-users’ rights (such as charging excessively high tariffs and conditioning the purchase of certain services by the purchase of other services).
Today’s discussions with the industry representatives confirmed the necessity of imposing obligations to the provider having significant market power on the retail markets:
a) the obligation to allow its subscribers to use the services of any other provider of publicly available telephony services with which an interconnection agreement has been concluded, by means of the carrier selection or pre-selection procedure;
b) the interdiction for the provider to condition the provision of a certain service by the end-users’ consent to use additional services, not related to the requested service; or (cost-orientation of retail tariffs).
c) the interdiction for the provider to charge excessively high tariffs in relation to the costs involved in the provision of the respective services;
d) the interdiction for the provider to charge tariffs below the costs involved in the provision of the respective services.
At the same time, ANRC requested S.C. Romtelecom S.A. that the carrier pre-selection procedure be operational by the mid-2006 and also requested that an accounting registration system for the costs of services provided in the relevant specific retail markets be implemented.
Carrier pre-selection allows the subscribers of the provider having significant market power on the retail market to choose whether all or certain categories of calls are conveyed by another services provider, pre-selected (upon a concluded contract), without the individual carrier selection code being dialled for each call.