The President of the National Regulatory Authority for Communications and Information Technology (ANRCTI), Dan Georgescu, and the Vice-President, Alexandrina Hirtan welcomed today, March 13, 2008, at the ANRCTI headquarters, the European Commissioner for Information Society and Media, Viviane Reding.
During the meeting, for approximately one hour, the ANRCTI officials presented the European Commissioner the competition environment in the Romanian electronic communications market, the milestones of the Authority’s regulatory activity, as well as the priorities on the 2008 agenda.
The ANRCTI representatives emphasised the fact that during the 5 years since liberalisation, the turnover in the Romanian electronic communications market doubled and the market witnessed a uniquely dynamic trend in Europe as regards the development of infrastructure-based competition, which is the most sustainable competition model. This development was facilitated by the Authority’s regulatory policy, which focused on the reduction of fixed and mobile call termination rates. The rates the operators pay for terminating calls outside their network are key to competition in the fixed and mobile telephony markets.
ANRCTI also showed that it is currently preparing a regulatory package that envisages tariff control of call termination on the alternative fixed operators’ networks, which – with the exception of RCS&RDS – have not been regulated so far. The proposed measures, which have been submitted to public consultation and will be notified to the European Commission in the next weeks, are aimed at regulating the alternative operators’ termination rates based on the symmetry principle, so that, in 2009, these rates should reach the target level for regional termination on Romtelecom’s network.
Moreover, ANRCTI presented the status of regulation of mobile call termination rates, showing that, as of January 1st, 2009, these rates will reach the level of 5.03 €cents/minute for Orange and Vodafone. This level has been established in 2006, by means of a costing model elaborated by the Authority and is 38% lower than the rates charged by these operators before regulation. Viviane Reding appreciated that this level of the termination rates is an indicator of the very pro-competitive policy pursued by the Romanian telecoms regulator and stated that the Commission intends to reduce the existing differences between the Member States as regards these rates. Currently, the European Commission is preparing a Recommendation aimed at ensuring consistency of regulatory approaches in the 27 Member States. The European Commissioner declared: “Mobile termination rates in Europe should go down to the level of an efficient operator. I welcome the direction taken by the Romanian regulator and I would encourage them to bring prices down even further, in close coordination with other regulators in Europe. This would be in the interest of European consumers. The case of mobile termination rates shows that there is a need to achieve more consistency in telecoms regulation in Europe. This is why the Commission has proposed to establish an independent European telecoms authority to solve such problems faster in the future, having the consumer interest in mind.”
During the discussions, the representatives of ANRCTI showed their concern related to the users’ low level of awareness regarding the tariffs charged for the communications services in the context of an increase of the number and complexity of available offers on the market. The Authority’s surveys indicate that users do not have access to information that would enable them to make comparisons and rational choices as to the service provider, the service package or the consumption behaviour. Upon ANRCTI’s proposal, the European Regulators Group (ERG) decided to analyse during 2008 the way in which the providers of electronic communications services in the European States inform the public on the tariffs charged. ERG shall analyse as well the measures the regulatory authorities take in order to make sure that the users know, understand and are able to compare the tariffs charged by various providers. By this action, ERG intends to identify a set of good practices to guide the regulatory authorities in taking certain measures meant to increase the transparency of tariffs, as well as in making available certain web pages so as to enable the end-users to compare the tariffs for the packages available on the market („interactive guides” or „tariff compares”).
In this context, the Authority welcomed the initiative of the European Commission to propose, while reviewing the European Directive which regulates the rights of the electronic communications users, more effective mechanisms in order to ensure the users with transparency and access to information. Thus, the Commission wishes to increase the regulatory authorities’ role so that they are able to request more transparency from operators in their relation with the users and, where the market does not provide them, they will have to make available to the public interactive guides for tariff comparison.