16.10.2024

The National Authority for Management and Regulation in Communications of Romania (ANCOM) has launched today for public consultation a draft decision determining indicative tariffs for access to some physical road infrastructure for the installation of electronic communications networks. These measures are intended to support the development of high-speed communications networks and to reduce the costs of installing the necessary infrastructure in this sector.

Main provisions

According to Infrastructure Law (no.159/2016), network operators shall grant access to the road infrastructure they own or administrate, at certain rates, for the installation of communications equipment and networks. Network operators are administrators of highways, expressways, national or county roads, except for county councils which manage roads. The indicative tariffs cover access to different types of roads, namely highways, national, express and county roads, and they differ according to requested access type: underground along the road or undercrossing.

Network operators administrating road infrastructure cannot charge fees for the aerial installation of cables on poles located in the road areas they manage, if the poles belong to other entities.

The indicative tariffs proposed by ANCOM for access to the road infrastructure owned or administrated by a network operator differ according to the road category and access zone (safety zone/road reserve area – outside the carriageway/under the carriageway). Here are some examples of the applicable tariffs for installing an underground cable along the road:

• Highways: between 19.13 and 28.07 euros/km/month;
• Expressways / national roads: between 15.32 and 19.01 euros/km/month;
• County roads: between 3.60 and 5.08 euros/km/month.

The draft relies on compliance with the provisions of the Infrastructure Law. Thus, the indicative tariffs were calculated according to the tariffs associated with the provision of the infrastructure access service, namely the costs of infrastructure investments made by the network operator, the operational costs related to the physical infrastructure to which access is granted to electronic communications network providers, as well as assessing the impact of the requested access on the business plan of network operators and the improvements made to the physical infrastructure by the electronic communications networks provider, to the extent that they benefit the operator, for each of the identified categories of network operators.

The proposed tariffs are indicative, and they will serve as reference for the negotiations between the parties, providing increased transparency and preventing excessive tariffs for access to road infrastructure. The network operators must take these tariffs into utmost account when negotiating contracts, any deviation requiring objective justification. Specifically, in the event that a network operator may claim, relaying on objective grounds and based on information extracted from financial statements and other reports, as the case may be, that the indicative tariffs do not cover the costs of providing the access service to the physical road infrastructure under its administration, it can justify a higher access tariff, which it will be able to charge in its contractual relations with public electronic communications networks providers.

ANCOM has aimed at developing a balanced model on indicative tariffs, to help avoid potential disputes, and to speed up dispute resolution.

Public consultation

ANCOM`s draft decision on indicative tariffs for access to certain physical road infrastructure for electronic communications networks is available, in Romanian, here. The interested parties are invited to submit their comments and suggestions, by 15 November 2024, to the ANCOM headquarters (2 Delea Noua Street, Bucharest 3), directly to the ANCOM online Registry Office or by means of ANCOM`s regional divisions. Comments may also be sent by fax to +40 372 845 402 or by e-mail to consultare@ancom.ro.