On May 11, 2006, ANRC communicated to Romtelecom the ANRC decision that amends the Reference Unbundling Offer (RUO), the document setting out the conditions under which alternative operators may provide services through the local loop owned by Romtelecom (the two copper wires connecting a subscriber to a telephone exchange). Following these amendments, the high-speed Internet and fixed telephony providers who do not have their own infrastructure will gain easier access to the subscribers connected to Romtelecom’s network. 

The amendments and completions to the RUO provisions were deemed necessary considering that certain clauses in the RUO forwarded by Romtelecom did not observe the provisions of ANRC president’s Decision no.1098/2004, that establishes the regulatory framework related to unbundled access to the local loop. Also, ANRC amended and completed ANRC president’s Decision no.1098/2004 in order to clarify certain provisions therein and provide certain obligations, imposed to Romtelecom, in a more detailed manner.

In order to ensure a predictable business environment, the revised RUO will include all tariffs and services that are necessary for those companies that require Romtelecom to provide access to the local loop. The package of services regulated by ANRC will also include new services, together with the allowed tariffs.

Additionally, all plans related to changing the access network, namely modernising or disabling the access network, will be published in RUO at least 12 months prior to their implementation, in order to provide the alternative operators with the possibility to timely include this change in their own business plan.

The alternative operators will be able to acknowledge the conditions observed by Romtelecom in using elements of its own infrastructure for providing Internet and telephony services to its subscribers. Romtelecom will make this possible by publishing the Internal Reference Unbundling Conditions (IRUC). Similar to RUO, this document will include a list of all the services offered internally in order to provide unbundled access to the local loop, the transfer charges for each of these services, the quality conditions, service provision terms, repair terms and a detailed description of the internal services provision procedure.

IRUC will explain in detail the differences likely to occur between the conditions for internally providing the services of unbundled access to the local loop and the conditions for providing these services to alternative operators.

On a quarterly basis, Romtelecom will publish on its Internet website a set of indicators describing the conditions observed by the company in providing services of access to the local loop, during the last 3 months, both internally and to other operators. These indicators refer to the quality and availability conditions, service provision terms and repair terms applied by Romtelecom for its own services, compared to those made available to the other operators.

 

Additional Information

 

What is full access to the local loop?

If an alternative provider benefits from full access to the local loop, it means the respective provider takes on lease the twisted metallic pair connecting a subscriber to a telephone exchange (i.e. the local loop), which is to be used exclusively for the provision of both broadband Internet access services and telephone services.

 

What is shared access to the local loop?

If an alternative provider benefits from shared access to the local loop, it means that Romtelecom shall use the low frequency channel (0–4KHz) for the provision of publicly available telephone services, at fixed locations, while the other frequency channels shall be used by the respective alternative provider for the provision of broadband Internet access services. The equipment for the provision of broadband Internet access services belong to the alternative provider.