The National Regulatory Authority for Communication and Information Technology (ANRCTI) launches a pilot tender in view of designating the universal service providers for 50 rural localities in Olt county. “Each company interested in becoming a universal service provider must submit an offer for the installation of public pay telephones in at least 40 of the 50 localities listed in this group, namely minimum 80%. Any person having the capacity as a provider of publicly available electronic communications networks and, at the same time, the capacity as a provider of publicly available telephone services may participate in the tender”, Dan Cristian Georgescu, President of ANRCTI, declared.
By means of public pay telephones, the citizens in the rural areas may at least initiate local, long-distance and international calls to public fixed telephone networks, calls to public mobile telephone networks, as well as free calls to the unique emergency number (112).
The minimum mandatory lifetime of a public pay telephone is of 4 years. The net cost registered by each universal service provider for purchasing, installing and operating public pay telephones shall be compensated from the universal service fund managed by ANRCTI.
The universal service provider will have the obligation to install the public pay telephones within 120 days after the necessary location is made available, and will therefore benefit from the support of the local authorities. One of the main responsibilities taken over by the local authorities is to make available a proper location and ensure the end-users permanent access (24/24, 7/7) to the services provided by means of the public pay telephones.
Public pay telephones will be installed in localities with less than 400 inhabitants, where the installation of telecentres is not a viable solution. The localities are selected depending on the geographical area, demographic features, degree of availability of the publicly available telephone services, as well as by the commitments taken over by the public local authorities. The list comprising the localities covered by today’s tender for the installation of public pay telephones is available for consultation here, on the website of ANRCTI.
The documents required for drawing up and submitting the offer in order to participate in the tender for the installation of telecentres may be purchased from the ANRCTI headquarters as of January 30, 2007. Further requests for details may be transmitted by March 12, 2007. The deadline for submitting the offers is March 27, 2007, 16:00. The offers will be opened on March 28, 2007 at 10:00 and the winning offer will be designated by the tender commission within 30 days from the opening date.