The Court of Appeal of Bucharest rejected yesterday Romtelecom’s request to suspend, for the duration of the trial, the decision of the National Regulatory Authority for Communications which obliges the operator to decrease its interconnection rates.
In October 2005, ANRC imposed on the fixed incumbent the obligation to reduce the interconnection tariffs in two stages: as of the 1st of January 2006 and as of the 1st of January 2007. Romtelecom sued ANRC for this decision, requesting the measure to be suspended during the trial.
By rejecting the request of Romtelecom regarding the suspension of the ANRC decision, the court confirms the fact that a decrease in the interconnection tariffs is not likely to cause unjustified losses for the telephony provider and that it represents, at the same time, an important step towards development of effective competition in the Romanian communications market.
“Interconnection tariffs are the key to competition and it is ANRC’s objective to develop competition, because the Romanian market cannot remain any longer under the dominance of one single operator. The consumers will soon see the advantages of this decision. I am convinced that within 1 year Romanian users will have a wide variety of telephony services to chose from, provided by operators who will fight for each and every user by means of offers and prices but also by means of quality and efficiency”, Dan Georgescu, the President of ANRC, declared.
The decision of the court substantiates the ANRC viewpoint, presented and economically justified in front of the Court of Appeal of Bucharest, according to which, in reality, by the decrease of the interconnection tariffs Romtelecom only loses those incomes currently obtained on an unjustified basis, by charging tariffs that are not cost oriented.
By its regulatory measures, ANRC intends to eliminate this inequity that is reflected in the tariffs charged by Romtelecom to its competitors, while at the same time offering the incumbent a stable financial situation.
As of the 1st of January 2006, Romtelecom will lower the interconnection rates as to reach the level established by ANRC through the decision issued in October 2005:
– 0.70% during the peak hours and 30.32% during off-peak hours for interconnection at local level;
– 9.47% during the peak hours and 45.99% during off-peak hours for interconnection at regional level;
– 9.04% during the peak hours and 46.86% during off-peak hours for interconnection at national level.