On Thursday, November 3, 2005, during the fourth meeting of the ANRC Caravan held in Iasi, the President of the National Regulatory Authority for Communications, Mr. Dan Cristian Georgescu, and the ANRC Vice-president, Ms. Alexandrina Hirtan, met the representatives of the communications industry in the counties of Bacau, Botosani, Covasna, Galati, Harghita, Iasi, Neamt, Suceava, Vaslui, and Vrancea.
“The ANRC Caravan has stopped in all the regions of Romania this year; we have completed two journeys simultaneously: a geographical one – which gave us the opportunity to identify the specific problems of the local industry, and a regulatory one – by which we settled the main issues raised by the industry. During the first meeting – held in January at Cluj-Napoca – 80% of the local companies’ questions regarded the calculation formula for the monitoring tariff and the providers’ access to the associated infrastructure, especially masts. We have already solved the first problem: we proposed and approved a new formula for the calculation of the monitoring tariff. Today, on the occasion of this meeting, we are in the position to announce that ANRC has launched for consultation the draft law providing for the solution to the second problem raised by the industry: the providers’ access on properties and to the infrastructure associated with the provision of communications networks”, the ANRC President, Mr. Dan Cristian Georgescu, declared during the meeting.
The problems raised by the industry regarding access on properties for the purpose of installing communications networks, as well as the providers’ access to the associated infrastructure of these networks – masts, ducts, pillars – have been approached by this draft law, which ANRC and the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology have launched for consultation this week. This draft law proposes the enlargement of the ANRC field of competence (currently limited to imposing the obligation of shared use of the associated infrastructure and to establishing compulsory conditions only to the entities that provide electronic communications networks), which will enable ANRC to approach broader infrastructure disputes, involving, for example, public utility providers – electricity, public transport, etc. Thus, ANRC will be competent to mediate those cases where an understanding between a provider of electronic communications networks and a person who owns or controls elements of the associated infrastructure (not necessarily another provider of communications networks, as the current legislation stipulates) can not be reached.
Regarding the access of the providers of electronic communications networks and services on public property, ANRC proposes a transparent and non-discriminatory procedure for the conclusion of access agreements: the owners of such property shall make publicly available the access conditions and the tariffs they charge. These access tariffs should be justified and in direct proportion to the degree of intrusion on the respective property.
Additional information
In the counties of Bacau, Botosani, Covasna, Galati, Harghita, Iasi, Neamt, Suceava, Vaslui and Vrancea there are 511 providers authorised to provide electronic communications services, i.e. 23.7% of the total number of authorised providers. 502 of these providers notified ANRC on their intention to provide public networks, 16 – telephone services, and 261 – Internet access services.
The penetration rate for fixed telephone services in the 10 counties mentioned above amounts to 16.2%. The first counties featuring the highest penetration rate are Galati – 20.51%, Covasna – 19.31%, and Bacau – 19.28%. Currently, there are 7 alternative telephone services operators in the county of Iasi, registering 1055 subscribers (figure available as of June 30, 2005).
Moreover, there are 24 active providers of services for the re-transmission of audio-visual programmes (CATV) in the county of Iasi, while the following counties feature higher numbers of such active providers: Suceava – 46, Neamt – 44, and Bacau – 42.
This event is part of a series of regional ANRC meetings with the industry representatives, meant to establish direct dialogue and to identify the difficulties encountered by the electronic communications providers.