This year, the Romanian regulator is facing multiple challenges, ranging from the expansion of its powers to cover spectrum issues to carrying out the first round of market analyses within Romania’s membership in the EU. This conference will be a unique opportunity for ANRCTI to present the results of a one-year exercise of investigation, analysis and reflection, which are now rounding up in a regulatory policy and strategy for the Romanian electronic communications sector up to 2010.

 

The event comes in the context of fiery national debates. The review of the fixed termination market, under public consultation in Romania, calls for a clear policy approach to regulating interconnection in an environment where convergence and direct competition between fixed and mobile operators are becoming stronger every day, with mobile players penetrating the fixed markets. Also, the rollout of next generation access networks, with classical local loop unbundling gradually fading away, has stirred up the spirits of the alternative industry, who claims for improved, effective remedies, adapted to the new technological reality. Notwithstanding the need to secure the ability to compete in the long run of the access seekers, the question of what priority should be given to promoting service-based competition in a market with a clear preference for developing alternative infrastructure is becoming acute.

 

The conference is tactically positioned in a key moment of the review process of the EU regulatory framework for electronic communications, which creates a unique context of reflection on the ultimate goals of regulation and on how they relate to the need to maximise investment and foster the competitiveness of the European telecom industry, at a global level. The conference's debates will revolve around the need for a common European approach to the policy and strategic objectives of regulation. An actual and even urgent case study is proposed for examination: the regulatory strategy for the Romanian telecoms sector up to 2010, following a one-year exercise of thorough investigation and analysis in one of the most attention-grabbing markets of the enlarged European Union.

The agenda of the event draws together officials of the European Commission, large European groups acting in the field of communications, top representatives of regulatory authorities with a remarcable activity at the Europe level, as well as heads of the regulatory division of important stakeholders from the telecom industry around Europe, also present in the Romanian market as key players. Speakers include Mr. Panagis Vourloumis, OTE Greece Chairman & CEO, Mr. Ian Gray, CEO Central and Eastern Europe, Vodafone Group, Mr. Hubertus von Roenne, Director, Strategic Deal Management BT Global Services and member of the ECTA Board, Mr. Richard Moat, CEO, Orange Romania, Mr. Yorgos Ioannidis, CEO, Romtelecom, Ms. Paraskevi Michou, Head of Unit, Procedures Related to National Regulatory Measures, the Directorate-General for Information Society and Media (DG INFSO), European Commission, Ms. Gabrielle Gauthey, Member of the Board of ARCEP (France), Mr. Ian Hargreaves, Senior Partner in the Board of Ofcom (UK), Mr. Daniel Pataki, Chairman of the European Regulators Group 2008 and President of NCAH (Hungary), Prof. Martin Cave, Director of the Centre for Management under Regulation at the Warwick Business School (UK), Mr. Konstantinos Ploumpis, General Director of Regulatory Affairs, OTE Greece, Mr. Luc Herminjard, Vice President Mobile Regulatory Affairs, Orange - France Telecom Group, Mr. Paul Ryan, Public Policy Executive, Vodafone Group, Chris Hutchins, Director Public Policy, Liberty Global, Ms. Eirini Nikolaidi, Chief Legal Counsel – General Director of Competition, Legal and Regulatory Affairs Division, Cosmote, Greece.