“ANRC was established to create a competitive communications market and to promote the sector development, as well as the end-users’ interest and investments. In 2005, all our efforts have been committed to the achievement of these objectives, by which ANRC makes an important contribution to the development of a healthy economy. We keep a steady and safe direction towards our final mission of bringing the advantages of competition to all the end-users’ homes and especially of offering them the real possibility to make a choice”, the ANRC President, Mr. Dan Georgescu, declared yesterday during the press conference dedicated to presenting the ANRC Annual Report for 2005.
The ANRC President highlighted the main trends of the Romanian communications in 2005 and drew the conclusion that the sector continued to develop, thus proving – in the third year from the moment of its full liberalisation – a sound reaction to competition. More than 1500 providers of communications networks and services operate on the market umpired by ANRC. Big foreign investors confirmed the development prospects of Romanian communications, investing in the Romanian market or strengthening their presence here, stimulated by the market potential and by the modern and predictable regulatory frame. The regulations for the Romanian communications market observe the Community standards and the European Union’s country report encourages the measures for promoting competition set out by ANRC.
Competition effects began to emerge: the market share of the fixed telephony alternative operators reached 4.1% in June, having increased by 300% in the first half of 2005. Moreover, the mobile telephony sector witnessed an important growth: over half of the Romanians use mobile telephones and this rate tends to equal the average rate at the level of the European Union (83% by the end of 2004). The number of Romanians using the Internet access services offered by more than 700 providers is estimated to reach 4 million.
The ANRC President reviewed the Authority’s activity during 2005, pointing out the measures for promoting competition on the telephony market and the steps taken in the implementation of Universal Service.
In 2005, ANRC imposed Romtelecom to calculate cost-oriented interconnection tariffs. This measure will produce effects starting from the 1st of January, 2006, when the operators interconnected with Romtelecom are to pay lower tariffs for their subscribers’ calls to Romtelecom subscribers. The predictable results of this tariff decrease are: cheaper calls, higher traffic rates and – indirectly – an increasing number of subscribers to fixed telephony. These results will become reality within a relatively short term, depending on the swiftness of the alternative operators’ reaction to the new market conditions.
“We believe that the new tariffs for interconnection with the network of the major provider of fixed telephone services will give significant impetus to competition in the near future. The same beneficial effects will be triggered by the cost-orientation of the tariffs for interconnection between mobile networks, as ANRC is preparing – at the beginning of 2006 – the launch of a public consultation on the interconnection tariffs of Mobifon and Orange Romania,” Mr. Dan Georgescu stated.
The 2005 amended procedure of Universal Service implementation determined five operators to roll out their networks into the rural areas in more than 20 counties: the telecentres will give access to communications to the villagers in isolated communities. “The market response boosted our final objective: by 2010, the whole country will be connected to telephone networks,” Mr. Dan Georgescu declared.
Now, the users’ right to make choices can be actually exercised in the Romanian communications market, since the alternative offer is accompanied by new services, in a price – quality proportion more and more favourable for the users. The users are increasingly aware of this opportunity; thus, the number of fixed telephony users of the new-entrants tripled in the first half of 2005.
“Eventually, we are entitled to expect that, in 2006, the electronic communications sector will continue the growing trend as concerns both the active providers and the users. We forecast that attractiveness will be generated through the service packages (voice, data, cable TV) offered by the alternative providers of fixed telephony as well as through the 3G services already available from one of the mobile operators and soon to be launched by a second operator”, Mr. Dan Georgescu added.
The year 2006 will be the year of completing the procedures required for the implementation of number portability as from January 1st, 2007 as well as of the carrier pre-selection procedure – a facility through which a Romtelecom subscriber will be able to choose that all or certain categories of his calls be carried to their termination by another telephone service provider. Furthermore, in 2006, ANRC will elaborate a revised and improved version of the Reference Offer for the Unbundled Access to the Local Loop and will amend the general authorisation regime for the purpose of simplifying the notification procedure.