Today, March 2, 2007, following a request submitted by S.C. Cosmote Romanian Mobile Telecommunications S.A. during the legal action filed to ANRCTI, the Authority adopted certain measures with a temporary character, until the dispute will be settled, therefore obliging S.C. Telemobil S.A. to provide interconnection with the network of Cosmote. By its decision, ANRCTI obliged Telemobil to take all necessary measures – within 3 hours since the decision is communicated (12:00 hours) – and re-establish the communication between the users of Telemobil and the users of Cosmote. Moreover, ANRCTI initiated the procedure for the definitive settlement of the dispute regarding Cosmote’s request related to obliging Telemobil to conclude a new interconnection agreement.
“ANRCTI considers that the prejudice by suffered by the users of the two providers resulted from the interruption of the interconnection link is exceptionally severe, taking into account the large number of users of the two networks – over 400,000 users in case of Telemobil and, respectively, over 1,200,000 in case of Cosmote. The prejudice caused to the end-users is significant irrespective of the number of hours or days during which interconnection between the two operators is interrupted and may not be limited unless interconnection between the two networks is ensured. It is ANRCTI’s fundamental mission to support the interests of the end-users”, Dan Georgescu, President of ANRCTI, declared.
The measures taken by ANRCTI were justified by the necessity to ensure connectivity among the end-users of the two networks. Connectivity is one of the fundamental rights of the end-users, while the task of ensuring this essential objective of the electronic communications framework is taken over by ANRCTI.
The regulatory authority is competent with regard to ensuring access and interconnection under adequate conditions and interoperability of services, to the benefit of the end-users, including by imposing specific obligations on the providers who control the access to end-users.
During the legal action filed to ANRCTI, Cosmote showed that, since March 1, 2007, Telemobil has interrupted the interconnection link between the two networks and, at present, the end-users of the two companies are no more able to communicate. Under these circumstances, as a measure with a temporary character, Cosmote requested that Telemobil should ensure the interconnection services under the same technical and commercial conditions used until the moment of interrupting the interconnection link, and showed it suffers serious prejudice form both material and image viewpoints. Moreover, the users of its services as well as the users of the services provided by Telemobil are suffering a prejudice since they are no longer able to communicate with one another and, therefore, Comsote considers possible that their prejudice may not be compensated.
On the other hand, Telemobil stated that Cosmote’s request is not a justified one, since there exist no exceptional circumstances and no serious prejudice, and declared that the interruption of traffic between the two networks is due to the termination of the interconnection agreement between the two parties as of March 1, 2007. Also, Telemobil stated that the parties have had long discussions regarding the conclusion of a new interconnection agreement and Cosmote has been timely informed with respect to the intention to interrupt the interconnection link as of March 1, 2007, should the proposals of Telemobil not be accepted.