In 2010, the National Authority for Management and Regulation in Communications (ANCOM) conducted 12,460 controls in the market of electronic communications and of postal services, enforcing 394 notifications, 270 warnings and 23 fines amounting to RON 448,500.
Out of the total controls, 3,161 were conducted on the electronic communications providers – 1,372 on the Internet providers, 245 on the telephony providers and 1,544 on the audio-visual programme retransmission providers. Following these controls, ANCOM transmitted 236 notifications and 11 warnings, enforcing 9 fines amounting to RON 345,000. The most frequent deficiencies concerned the non-compliance with the obligation to insert in the contracts concluded with the end-users the legal minimum requirements, as well as the non-observance of the technical and electromagnetic compatibility requirements imposed on the electronic communications networks by the general authorisation regime.
As well, the Authority conducted 5,038 controls on the holders of licences for the use radio-electric frequencies – 3,295 on the radiocommunication providers and 1,743 on the radio and television providers, following which ANCOM transmitted 158 notifications and 97 warnings, and enforced 6 fines amounting to RON 30,500. The deficiencies identified concerned the non-compliance with the provisions under the authorisation documents (licences for the use of frequencies and frequency assignment authorisations), as well as with the provisions related to the radiocommunication station operation.
Furthermore, ANCOM conducted 2,166 controls on the postal service providers, 1,558 of which on the Universal Service provider in the postal sector – Romanian Post National Company – who was enforced 5 fines amounting to RON 53,000. In total, ANCOM transmitted 77 warnings to the postal service providers who breached the legal provisions, enforcing 8 fines amounting to RON 73,000. The most frequent deficiencies concerned the non-compliance with the specific obligations of the Universal Service provider – for CNPR, respectively breach of the obligation to inform ANCOM on any change of the data in the notification, for the other postal service providers.
Beside the controls conducted on the providers authorised by ANCOM, the Authority, as a body which monitors the Romanian equipment market, conducted other 2,095 controls on the radio equipment and telecommunications terminal equipment existing on the market. ANCOM transmitted 85 warnings, following which the identified deficiencies (i.e. absence of the EC conformity mark, absence of the Conformity Statement or absence of the user’s guide in Romanian) were remedied.
During 2010, with the help of the Spectrum Monitoring National System, 6,391 monitoring actions were conducted, following which 142 cases of unauthorised radio-electric broadcastings or of breaches of the provisions under the authorisation documents (broadcasting licences, operation technical authorisations, licences for the use of frequencies and frequency assignment authorisations) were identified. In addition, ANCOM conducted other five significant monitoring campaigns: verification of the compliance with the obligations under the 3G licences of S.C. RCS&RDS S.A. and S.C. Telemobil S.A. – the Authority verified the signal coverage of 7,714 km of roads and 238 localities, verification of the broadband Internet coverage in 255 localities, verification of the compliance with the obligations imposed under the WIMAX licence granted to SNR at end-2008, verification of the mobile telephony provision in 44 localities in isolated rural areas, and one monitoring campaign on the FM sound radio-broadcasting spectrum at the western border area, with a view to establish the level of occupation of the FM sound radio-broadcasting band (87.5 MHz ÷ 108 MHz) by the broadcastings of the Romanian and foreign stations.