20.02.2014

“With a view to ensuring compliance with the legal provisions in the electronic communications and postal services markets, in 2013, ANCOM conducted 5,530 control actions. Following these, 324 notifications were issued and 394 warnings and 59 fines were applied, amounting to RON 619,100”, declared Cristin Popa, Director of ANCOM’s Executive Division Monitoring and Control.

Approximately one third of the total number of control actions, i.e. 1,692,envisaged electronic communications providers: 870 inspections - Internet providers, 68 - telephony providers and 754 - providers of audiovisual programme retransmission services. Following these control actions, 267 notifications were issued and 234 warnings and 28 fines amounting to RON 472,000 were applied. One of the most frequently assessed and sanctioned breaches was the operators’ failure to comply with certain technical and electromagnetic compatibility conditions imposed on the electronic communications networks under the general authorisation.

2,762 control actions, approximately half of the total number, were performed on holders of licences for the use of spectrum resources, 1,784 of which were performed on radiocommunications providers and 978 on radio and television providers. In this case, ANCOM’s inspectors issued 57 notifications on the intention of enforcing a sanction and applied 137 warnings and 25 fines amounting to RON 104,100. The main breaches sanctioned were failure to comply with the provisions under licences and authorisations, and misoperation of radiocommunications stations. 

195 of the control actions the Authority performed in 2013 envisaged postal service providers, 24 of which envisaged the National Company Romanian Post (CNPR) as a universal service provider. ANCOM applied 10 warnings to the postal service providers that failed to comply with the legal provisions and 5 fines amounting to RON 35,500. The most frequently assessed breaches regarded failure to comply with the obligations under the general authorisation regime.

881 control actions envisaged the manufacturers, importers and distributors of radio equipment and terminal telecommunications equipment, that were sanctioned by 13 warnings and one fine amounting to RON 7,500 for breach of the legal provisions in the field related to non-compliance of radio equipment and of their CE marking. 

Moreover, in 2013, the Authority conducted an ample campaign for verifying mobile radiocommunications stations using the 27 MHz citizen band. This action was performed in the period September - November 2013 in eight counties of Romania. Following the control campaign conducted on vehicles equipped with such mobile stations, 21 warnings were applied to drivers who used equipment with exceeding emission power, thus interfering with other communications in this band.

As regards the monitoring of the radio frequency spectrum, more than 15,000 monitoring actions were conducted in 2013, following which approximately 500 instances of unauthorised or non-compliant radioelectric emissions were assessed, as well as situations of breach of the conditions stipulated in the emission licences, technical functioning authorisations or in the frequency assignment authorisations, and corresponding measures for recovery of the legal status were taken.

In 2013, ANCOM monitored 351 radio and TV frequencies and 2,118 radiotelephony frequencies, detecting a number of 212 harmful interferences. Furthermore, 437 notices of approval were issued for construction authorisation.