Today, the National Authority for Management and Regulation in Communications (ANCOM) has launched a public consultation regarding the implementation of Universal Service in the Romanian electronic communications sector, with a view to enforcing the new National Strategy in the field.
During 2009, ANCOM completed the first phase of implementing the new National Strategy for Universal Service in the electronic communications field, by conducting a survey aimed at identifying those localities where electronic communications networks are needed. Starting from the survey conclusions, in order to find the adequate solutions for bridging the current divide between various social categories, as well as between the urban and the rural areas, ANCOM has launched today a public consultation on the most adequate methods for the implementation of Universal Service and for ensuring all citizens’ access to a minimal set of electronic communications services.
Therefore, the Authority has elaborated a questionnaire addressed to all those interested in providing or using electronic communications services within the scope of Universal Service, with some questions addressed to specific categories of users (such as the providers of electronic communications services). The questionnaire has been posted on the ANCOM website and includes sections regarding the end-users’ access to the public telephone network at a fixed location, the availability of public pay telephones, ensuring the disabled end-users’ access to and possibility of benefiting from publicly available telephone services, including emergency services, directory enquiry services and directories of subscribers, under conditions equivalent to those applicable for the rest of the end-users, the solutions for financing the Universal Service, as well as the functional access to the Internet as inherently pertaining to the access to the public telephone network, at a fixed location.
ANCOM invites all interested persons to submit their answers to the questionnaire published on the Authority’s website, here, by 19.04.2010. The answers may be sent also by post, bearing the specification “To the attention of the Tariff Regulations and Universal Service Unit”, to the ANCOM headquarters in 2 Delea Noua Street, Bucharest 3, as well as directly to the Registry, by e-mail to consultare@ancom.org.ro or by fax to +40 372 845 402.
Additional Information
The Universal Service is the minimal set of electronic communications services available upon request to all the end-users at affordable prices and at a certain quality level, irrespective of their geographical location in a Member State of the European Union. The access to Universal Service is a right of all the citizens of the European Union, the intervention of the state being needed where access to the minimal set of communications services is not ensured by the market mechanisms.
The services within the scope of Universal Service include the provision of access to the public telephone network, at a fixed location, alongside the directory enquiry service and making available a subscriber directory and access to public pay telephones. ANCOM is the institution entrusted with implementing the Universal Service in Romania, in order to ensure the end-users’ right of access to the Universal Service throughout the country.