The National Authority for Communications (ANC) is organising its annual international conference on October 21st, 2008, at the Radisson SAS Hotel, in Bucharest, under the title "Regulating Electronic Communications – Putting the End-User First".

This year’s edition will be centred on the idea that consumer interest is at the foundation of any regulatory construction and a genuine driving force for the development of the electronic communications sector. It will certainly be a privileged event – 2008 is an extremely challenging year for the electronic communications market, but also announces to be a rewarding year for consumers. It is a moment when pro-competitive and consumer-oriented milestones are set: the introduction of strengthened end-user protection instruments is proposed by the EU Framework Review, but it is also being discussed by regulators across Europe and the European Regulators Group; the extension of the international roaming regulation and a streamlined regulatory regime for the fixed and mobile termination are ranking high on the European Commission’s agenda; number portability is being introduced in Romania, along with other measures aimed at increasing competition and protecting the consumer interest. The date of the event itself, October 21^st, has been chosen for the importance that it has for the end-users – it is the day when fixed and mobile number portability become available in the Romanian market.

The agenda of the conference is structured in three sessions, focused on policies and instruments which are called to deliver Better Protection, More Freedom and More Power to the end-users. The first session will provide an overview of the most acute consumer concerns in the present and future telecom market and discuss possible remedies in the context of the Framework Review, from the perspective of decision makers, consumers and operators. The second session will be dedicated to the launch of fixed and mobile number portability in Romania and will attempt to predict, based on operators’ perceptions and lessons learnt from other countries, the impact of this major pro-competitive safeguard in the Romanian market. The third session of the conference is intended to give a strong signal about the transparency problems and consumer information deficit in the electronic communications market and will try to identify, via best practice examples, effective practical instruments to address these issues such as interactive price guides.

As we have witnessed during the previous editions, the ANC international conference traditionally enjoys the presence of the representatives of the European Commission and the national regulators, CEOs and top executives of the telecom groups operating in Romania – many of them major European players –, as well as high-level representatives of the European industry and consumer associations, and addresses an audience of participants from the industry, associations, partner institutions, mass-media, consultancies and academia, from Romania and from abroad.

Speakers include Martin Selmayr, Spokesperson for Information Society and Media (European Commission), Cristian Busoi, Member of the European Parliament, Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection, Levi Nietvelt (BEUC), Steve Jordan (GSME), Martin Cave, Director, Centre for Management under Regulation, Warwick Business School (UK), Richard Moat, CEO, Orange Romania, Yorgos Ioannidis, CEO, Romtelecom (Romania), Alexandru Oprea, President, RCS & RDS (Romania), Liliana Solomon, CEO, Vodafone Romania (tbc), Stefanos Teocharopoulos, CEO, Cosmote (Romania), Jack Mikaloff, CEO, UPC Romania (tbc), Chris Bataillard, CEO, Telemobil Romania, Reinaldo Rodríguez Illera, Chairman, CMT (Spain), Daphne Braal, OPTA (Netherlands), Pekka Sillanmäki, FICORA (Finland), Danielle Jacobs (INTUG), Patrick  Xavier,  Faculty  of  Business, Swinburne  University  of  Technology (Australia), Alex Chisholm, Commissioner, ComReg (Ireland), Anna Bradley, Chairman, Ofcom Consumer Panel (UK), Willy Jensen, Director General, NPT (Norway), Marianne Treschow, Director General, PTS (Sweden), Georg Serentschy, CEO Telecommunications,  RTR (Austria), José Amado da Silva, Chairman, ANACOM (Portugal).