“Today we agreed with the communications industry to enforce a set of reviewed regulations in the fixed telephony segment and a new general authorisation regime for the postal service providers. The amendment of the normative acts follows both the evolution of the competitive environment in the fixed telephony market and the significant change of the market structure,” Catalin Marinescu, the President of ANCOM, declared during a meeting of the Consultative Council.
More than 5 years after the first assessment of the competitive environment in the retail markets for services of access and calls provided at fixed locations, respectively in the wholesale markets for services of call origination provided at fixed locations and of call transit over the public telephone networks, when Romtelecom was designated as a provider with significant market power and was imposed a series of obligations, ANCOM reassessed the competitive environment and the regulatory measures in force.
“Despite the fact that competition in the market for fixed telephony services evolved considerably between 2004 and 2008, ANCOM found that Romtelecom still has significant power in both wholesale markets submitted for analysis, as well as in the retail market for access services. However it is necessary to withdraw certain obligations imposed on Romtelecom as some things can now be resolved by the competition existing in the market,” Catalin Marinescu stated.
Thus, in the retail market for access services, the Authority considers that it is necessary to maintain on Romtelecom exclusively the obligations of carrier selection and pre-selection (the obligation to offer its subscribers the possibility to use, for their calls, the services of any provider of publicly available telephone services with which the respective operator is interconnected) and to forbid the conditioning of the purchase of a service by the purchase of another service (the obligation to not condition the provision of access services at fixed locations by the end-users’ consent to receive additional facilities, with no relation to the required service, such as the included minutes, for instance).
As regards the markets for call services, ANCOM decided to withdraw all the obligations previously imposed on Romtelecom, as a result of the direct and indirect (i.e. from other markets) competition pressures exercised mostly by the operators of cable networks and of mobile telephone networks, which led to the significant decrease of the incumbent’s market shares, under 50% in certain cases.
As for the wholesale markets for call origination at fixed locations and call transit over the public telephone networks, the market analyses show that Romtelecom still has significant power, the main criteria grounding this conclusion being the more than 50% market share registered in both markets, the existence of high barriers as regards market entry and change of provider, and the lack of possible competitors.
Consequently, ANCOM decided to maintain all the obligations previously imposed on the provider with significant power – the obligation to allow access and use of certain specific network elements and of the associated infrastructure in view of providing the service of call origination at fixed locations and the service of interconnection in view of switched transit, the obligation of transparency, the obligation of non-discrimination and the obligation of price control, including tariff cost-orientation.
In the shortest time possible, ANCOM will notify the set of proposed measures to the European Commission and to the national regulatory authorities from the EU Member States, who, on their turn, may send ANCOM their comments and suggestions within one month from the notification date.
During the meeting of the Consultative Council, ANCOM also debated with the industry the amendment and completion of the authorisation regime for the postal service providers. Thus, through the decision adopted today, ANCOM clarified the general authorisation regime, regulating the regime applicable to the foreign legal persons who intend to provide postal services in Romania, taking also into consideration the case of the requesters with headquarters in the EU Member States or in the member countries of the European Economic Area, in the context of the freedom to provide services and of the right of establishment provided by the Treaty establishing the European Economic Community.
Moreover, the decision includes amendments which concern the documents that must be sent by the authorised natural persons, individual companies and family associations. As well, it regulates two new cases of cessation of the right to provide postal services, the bankruptcy of the provider and, respectively, the dissolution or cessation, in any other way, of its existence and the procedure of suspending the right to provide all or certain types of postal services as a sanction. It was established that the sanction may be set out, by decision of the ANCOM President, for 6 months at most.
The amendment of this decision was necessary to also clarify certain legal clauses related to the provision of services of clearance, respectively, delivery of postal items. These services may be provided by third parties, on behalf and on the expense of the postal service provider, based on a contract concluded in written form.
The decision is to be published in the Romanian Official Journal and will become effective three days after its publication date.