ANRC Takes a New Step towards Competitive Interconnection Tariffs

Following the designation of Romtelecom as operator with significant market power on the market of access to public fixed telephony networks for call origination, termination and switched transit, the company was imposed the obligation to charge cost-oriented tariffs for the interconnection services stated in the Reference Interconnection Offer, based on a long-run incremental costing system. ANRC established the methodology and the general principles that form the basis of the “top-down” long time incremental cost calculation method developed by Romtelecom. The company is to develop and implement this model no later than August 31, 2004.

Today, April 8, 2004, the National Regulatory Authority for Communications published on its website the methodology, the general principles and the indicative timeframe to be followed by ANRC in the development of the “bottom-up” long time incremental cost calculation method for Romtelecom. The elaboration of the aforementioned model represents the second necessary step for the cost orientation of the fixed operator’s interconnection tariffs.

After being developed, this model will be reconciled with the “top-down” cost calculation method. The document published today also includes the methodology to be applied by ANRC in order to reconcile the two models and develop a hybrid model to be used for setting cost oriented interconnection tariffs.

Deriving the incremental costs based upon the reconciliation of the cost calculation model developed by ANRC with the model developed by Romtelecom will allow the objective and transparent calculation of interconnection tariffs and will ensure the recovery of the efficient costs recorded by Romtelecom as well as the provision of equitable commercial conditions to the interconnected operators.

According to the timeframe set out by ANRC, the “bottom-up” model will be completed during the first half of July 2004, and the reconciliation with the model developed by Romtelecom, the elaboration of a hybrid model and the deriving of tariffs on this basis will be finalised no later than November 2004.