The National Regulatory Authority for Communications (ANRC) launched for public consultation the draft Decision on the amendment of ANRC President’s Decision no.140/2002 on the approval of the National Numbering Plan and ANRC President’s Decision no.141/2002 on the application and granting procedure regarding the license for the use of numbering resources.
The amendment of the National Numbering Plan was necessary in order to determine the provision and use of the carrier selection procedure without intermediary tone. The Carrier Selection allows the users of fixed telephony services to choose that a certain call is taken over and terminated long/distance or internationally by a carrier, other than the provider or providers they use for local calls. This can be dome by dialling a code before the digits of the telephone number (international or long-distance) they wish to call (from a telephone connected to a fixed telephony network). The users can make this option when they consider the carrier’s offer is more advantageous than the offer of their provider as regards financial and quality aspects.
Carrier selection without an intermediary tone, operational at this moment, creates to the providers of electronic communications services problems related to interconnection traffic billing and is not considered to be “user friendly” enough. Based on the comments and requests received from the electronic communications providers, ANRC formed within the Technical and Standardization Commission of the Consultative Council the sub-commission “Technical Interconnection Aspects”. This sub-commission studied the possibilities to implement the carrier selection without intermediary tone and several tests were conducted in order to identify the best solutions, with the participation of S.C. Romtelecom S.A., National Radiocommunications Society S.A. and S.C. Astral Telecom S.A. The results of the tests and the final report of the sub-commission are published on ANRC website and can be viewed here.
The technical solution identified by the sub-commission and agreed by the operators proposes the use of new 16xy type carrier selection codes. The introduction of the new codes requires the modification of the National Numbering Plan and the ANRC President’s Decision no.141/2002 on the application and granting procedure regarding the license for the use of numbering resources. These modifications are currently under public consultation.
At this moment, the 16xy type carrier selection codes are not mentioned in the National Numbering Plan and no other future usage has been provided for them, so that the technical impact on the provision of other electronic communications services is minimum. The individual 16xy type carrier selection codes will be used at the same time with the existing 10xyz type codes to be used for the carrier selection procedure with intermediary tone. Thus, each provider of electronic communications services can choose the appropriate solution for its users and can implement the carrier selection procedure with intermediary tone, without intermediary tone, or both.
The application and granting procedure regarding the licenses for the use of numbering resources for the 16xy type carrier selection code is the same as for the other numbering resources allotted by ANRC. The allocation of the 16xy type carrier selection code is not conditioned by the prior allocation of a 10xyz type carrier selection code.
The draft is available for consultation on the ANRC website until May 9, 2004. Comments can be sent by mail to ANRC headquarters at 14 Libertatii Blvd, sector 5, Bucharest, can be filed at the ANRC registration desk at the same address, or sent to the territorial office, in the county where the interested party has its headquarters. Comments can be sent by fax at +40 21 307 54 02 or by e-mail at consultare@anrc.ro.