Today, ANCOM and the representatives of the telecommunications industry agreed on the new measures meant to fight against prank and involuntary calls to 112, as well as on the new regulatory measures applicable to the wholesale markets for the services of leased lines-terminating segments.
ANCOM deemed necessary to define and implement a new set of measures for fighting against prank calls made to the emergency call service 112 since the provisional measure, i.e. warning by sending a number of SMS type messages, enforced between 20 March and 20 June 2009, was not effective enough, its impact fading in time.
Thus, the mobile subscribers to originate more than 2 prank calls daily will receive an SMS warning them on the infringement of the legislation in force. As per the pranksters who call the emergency service at least 6 times in a day, in addition to the SMS type messages sent as warning, their calls will be redirected, for 5 days, to an IVR (Interactive Voice Response) service, before transferring them to a 112 operator.
The involuntary calls (Silent and Wrong number calls) will be automatically redirected, during the same day, exclusively during the respective calendar day, to an IVR service whereby the caller will be informed via a recorded message that he/she has called the emergency service 112. If the caller wishes to request emergency services, he/she will be asked to press 5 two times. If, in 20 seconds, the caller does not follow the above-mentioned procedure, he/she will be disconnected. These measures will be implemented by the SNUAU administrator no later than 1 May 2011.
Until 1 February 2011, the providers of public mobile networks have the obligation to enable the SNUAU administrator to send the warning SMS to the subscribers who unjustifiably call the emergency service 112. The technical and economic conditions are to be established by the two parties until 15 January 2011.
In order to assess the new measures imposed for discouraging pranksters abusing the emergency number 112, ANCOM has established an improved mechanism for reporting the statistical data on the number of reliable, prank, involuntary or false calls. These data will be submitted to ANCOM, each semester, by the SNUAU administrator.
During the same meeting, ANCOM and the representatives of the communications industry agreed on the adoption of the new regulatory measures applicable to the wholesale market for the services of leased lines-terminating segments. The new decision identifies two distinct markets: the market for the services of leased lines-terminating segments with a transmission capacity of up to, and including, 2 Mbps, and the market for the services of leased lines-terminating segments with a transmission capacity higher than 2 Mbps.
In the market for the services of leased lines-terminating segments with a transmission capacity of up to, and including, 2 Mbps, ANCOM has identified S.C. Romtelecom S.A. as an operator with significant market power and decided to impose on it the following obligations: allow access to, and use of, specific elements of the network and of the associated infrastructure, transparency, non-discrimination, accounting separation, and price control, including tariff cost-orientation, based on the bottom-up calculation model of the long-run average incremental costs associated to the access network operated by Romtelecom, developed by ANCOM.
As well, since in the market for the services of leased lines-terminating segments with a transmission capacity higher than 2 Mbps no operator holds significant power, ANCOM proposes to withdraw all the obligations imposed on Romtelecom in 2003, as soon as the measures agreed within the Consultative Council become effective.
ANCOM is to notify the set of measures proposed for the market for services of leased lines-terminating segments to the European Commission and similar regulatory authorities from the other EU Member States, who will be able to send ANCOM their comments and suggestions within one month from the notification date.