ANRC sets the Reference Interconnection Tariffs Effectual on the Liberalized Market

Friday, December 13 2002, at the headquarters of the National Regulatory Authority for Communications took place the second meeting of the Consultative Council, discussed issues pertaining to the mediation and the settlement of the litigations between the telecommunications operators, to the minimal quality standards for communications services, to the new numbering plan and to the interconnection and collocation with the fixed telephony network.

The President of the ANRC, Ion Smeeanu, presented, at the press conference following the meeting of the consultative council, the final form of the Decision of the President of the ANRC on the Principles and the Preconditions of the Reference Interconnection Offer with the Fiexd Public Telephony Network. The final form of the document sets the maximum tariffs S.N. Tc. Romtelecom S.A. will charge for the interconnection services beginning with January 1, 2003: 1,15 euro cents/minute for the local interconnection (inside the same county), 2,1 euro cents/minute for the simple transit interconnection (interconnection at the 7+1 zonal exchange of Romtelecom) and 2,5 euro cents/minute for the double transit interconnection (at the switcher that routes the national and international calls).

The interconnection tariffs set by ANRC are below the average of the similar tariffs in European Union candidate countries that have already liberalized the electronic communications market.

The tariffs for the local interconnection remain unchanged – 1,15 euro cents/minute. “This value sustains the connection at the local exchanges level, ANRC strategy focusing on the development of the local infrastructure, where the investments must be pushed with priority. If the interconnection costs will be reduced, the local calls package will be cheaper, because it is influenced by these costs”, said the ANRC president, Ion Smeeianu. As regards the simple transit and double transit interconnection, Radu Tudorache, Economic Market Regulation Director, declared that “have been modified due to only sound justifications and arguments, based on economic and technical criteria. In addition, during the analysis of the proposals coming from different operators, including Romtelecom, ANRC thought at the realism criteria. These changes do not modify ANRC objective to create the competitive environment the electronic communications market requires and to develop the associated infrastructure”.

During the press conference, has been stated that the maximum collocation tariffs charged by Romtelecom will be 5 Euro/mp and 10 Euro/mp, but will to be differentiated on the national territory with respect to the tariffs from the real estate market. The collocation tariffs have been calculated , starting with the earlyest stages, based on a Romania real estate market study and have realistic values. ANRC Vice president, Alexandrina Hîrtan, present at the conference, showed that “based on this maximum tariffs, the significant market power operator will be able to create the interconnection and collocation reference offer. This offer will be then verified by ANRC in order to see if all the principles established by the Authority have been observed. If the reference offer does not observe all the conditions, ANRC will impose its adjustment so that the guidelines established by the Authority would be respected.”

The Consultative Council also discused the necessity to establish minimum quality satndards to be imposed to the electronic communications services providers. These standards have been established by the Decision on the imposal of minimum requirements for providing electronic communications services. „The purpose of these requirements is to protect the consumers and to maintain a quality discipline on the liberalized market, in compliance with the standards accepted at European level. We intend that on the liberalized market all the operators provide quality services, because the quality of a call is given by the weekeest link in the operator chain that contributes to every call connection,”, ANRC President underlined.

The documents discussed today during the Consultative Council meeting will be soon published in the Official Bulletin in order to allow the new operators to make the demarches needed for the entrance on the market. “ANRC specialists will create a database containing all the electronic communication services providers, that will be permanently updated and will be available to the users on the Authority web page,” indicated ANRC Vice-President, Alexandrina Hîrtan.