On Tuesday, November 11, 2003, the National Regulatory Authority for Communications held at its headquarters an interactive reunion addressed to the operators newly entered on the market, entitled “Unbundled access to local loop”. The debates follow the public consultation process launched by ANRC on October 2, 2003 on the ANRC Draft Decision regarding the principles and prerequisites of the reference offer for unbundled access to local loop. 50 representatives from 42 companies that intend to provide telephone, Internet access, leased lines and data transmissions services took part in the meeting.
The reunion was an opportunity for the ANRC specialists to gather comments from the operators regarding this draft decision, to present and explain in detail the means of access to local loop, the procedure for equipment installing and connecting, and any other measures that are to be undertaken by the operators in order to value the right of access to local loop. The ANRC representatives answered the questions formulated by the communications industry, trying to explain any aspects of the regulatory activity the operators thought unclear.
According to the draft decision under discussion, Romtelecom has the obligation to provide unbundled access to the local loop, under non-discriminatory conditions, to all the networks operators or electronic communications services providers that require it. Also, the operator shall publish a reference offer that includes both the services of providing access to local loop, and the tariffs and conditions under which he offers these services, with the observance of the decision’s provisions, regarding access to local loop, which ANRC will adopt. During the first part of the meeting, the operators raised issues such as: the mechanism for dividing the costs in case the fixed public network of the operator designated as having significant market power is extended, upon the requests and to the benefit of the operators with whom agreements for access to the local loop were concluded, as well as the issue of the collocation by Romtelecom of the access equipments.
During the second part of the meeting, the operators discussed other subjects of common interest, such as the opportunity of shorter deadlines for the negotiation and implementation of the agreements for local loop interconnection or finding solutions for accelerating the process of negotiating the agreements concluded based on the reference interconnection offer. As regards the latter issue, the operators proposed as solutions the following: the establishment of a reasonable deadline for determining the necessary technical solutions for interconnection or of a standard interconnection contract that should constitute the base for negotiation.
The Authority, acknowledging the fact that the regulation of the operators’ access to the fixed public telephone network and especially the regulation of the access to the local loop are issues with high impact on the electronic communications market, pledges for the active involvement of the industry in the regulatory process, through the public consultation procedure. ANRC will take into consideration these proposals, will analyze them and will decide on the opportunities of integrating them into the regulatory activity.
This meeting will be followed by a similar reunion where will be invited the representatives of S.C. Romtelecom S.A – the operator designated as having with significant power on the market of unbundled access to local loop, total or shared, to local loop constituted of a pair of twisted metallic wires, for the purpose of the provision of broadband electronic communications services and publicly available telephone services at fixed locations, as well as representatives of the mobile telephone services. The opinions presented during these meeting will be analysed by ANRC and discussed during a reunion of the ANRC Consultative Council.
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