“The liberalisation of this sector and the ANRC regulations, designed to stimulate competition, offer many investment opportunities on the Romanian market of electronic communications. The experience of other European countries who underwent similar changes proves that such opportunities may develop into successful business”, Mr. Irinel Ion, Head of Unit within the Economic Regulation Division of ANRC, declared during the seminar entitled “Electronic Communications and IT”.
The regulations issued by ANRC within its 3-year activity allowed the providers in the telephone market to benefit from cost-oriented tariffs for the interconnection with the network of the main fixed telephony operator, which fosters competition and triggers cheaper calls and increased traffic rates at the end-users’ level. Furthermore, the obligation imposed on Romtelecom regarding the provision of carrier selection and pre-selection services sets the foundation for the providers’ specialisation for particular types of calls and for particular destinations.
Moreover, the ANRC representative highlighted the fact that, upon the implementation of number portability, the new-entrants will be able to attract other networks’ users without having to break and compensate their resistance to changing numbers. In countries such as Belgium, Denmark or Netherlands, the rate of the numbers ported towards other networks exceeds 10% of the total number of fixed lines or of mobile subscribers.
In order to provide electronic communications services, 15 providers who do not have infrastructure of their own concluded agreements for access to the local loop, contracting 1076 loops. At the middle of 2004, in the 25 member states of the European Union, 1.3% of the local loops were leased for full access and 0.6% for shared access. Germany and Italy feature the greatest number of local leased lines, for full access, while France and Netherlands are on top – for shared access.
On this occasion, the ANRC representative presented the advantages of authorising the providers of neighbourhood networks as well as the gains of the electronic communications operators who get involved in the installation of telecentres in Romania.
The seminar “Electronic Communications and IT” was organised by the Ministry of European Integration and the Chamber for Commerce and Industry of Romania within the campaign preparing the Romanian business community for the accession moment.
The presentation of the ANRC Vice-president is available here, on the Authority’s website.