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ANCOM 2015 Action Plan, Agreed with the Telecom Industry
11.12.2014
In its Consultative Council meeting with the representatives of the Romanian industry of electronic communications and postal services, the Romanian Authority for Management and Regulation in Communications (ANCOM) discussed about its 2015 Action Plan, as well as about the decision concerning the request for the compensation of the net cost registered as a result of providing postal services within the scope of universal service in 2013, submitted by CNPR.
Next year, ANCOM will continue the implementation of the infrastructure law with the multi-annual project referring to elaborating the national inventory of the public electronic communications networks and of the associated infrastructure elements.
ANCOM will also continue the process of reviewing the relevant markets corresponding to the services of leased lines-terminating segments, will identify the providers with significant market power, if any, and will establish adequate regulatory measures in view of monitoring and stimulating competition in the field of provision of broadband internet access services. As regards the efficient management of the radio spectrum, ANCOM will allot additional spectrum resources for broadband communications by organising an auction for awarding the radio spectrum in the 3.4-3.8 GHz band. Furthermore, the Authority will support the digital switchover by organising in the second quarter of 2015 the auction for the unawarded national multiplexes and for the regional and local multiplexes. Following the public consultation, the 2015 Action Plan was completed with a public consultation to be launched by ANCOM in 2015 in view of preparing an auction for awarding radio spectrum for T-DAB (terrestrial digital audio broadcasting) in the VHF band.
In 2015, the Authority will also run a control campaign aimed at verifying the compliance of the providers of publicly available electronic communications services with the minimum obligations they must insert in the contracts concluded with the end-users and a campaign aimed at verifying the electronic communications providers’ compliance with the obligations of informing the end-users. In view of offering the providers of publicly available electronic communications services a set of clarifications regarding the interpretation and implementation of the legal obligations to be observed when concluding distance contracts with the consumers, ANCOM will elaborate a Handbook for concluding distance/outside-the-point-of-sale-contracts.
The ANCOM 2015 Action Plan was published on its website, here.
With respect to the universal postal service, ANCOM decided to not compensate the net cost registered by CNPR in 2013 upon providing services within the scope of universal service, considering that these services brought profit to the company and do not represent an unfair burden for CNPR.
The Authority took this decision after analysing the financial and competitive situation of CNPR in the context of the Romanian postal market, as well as the market conditions of the alternative postal providers. The analysis showed that, although the full liberalisation of the postal market led to the removal of the CNPR monopoly in the segment of the reserved services at the begining of 2013, the universal service provider’s market share remained steady.
As well, ANCOM calculated the profitability level of CNPR and assessed that the universal service provider registered profit in 2013 in the universal service segment and respectively a gross profit margin well above the reasonable profit level, set by ANCOM at 13.10% for 2013. The Authority thus considers that the value of the net cost does not represent an unfair burden for the universal service provider.
The net cost of the universal service obligations is the difference between the costs borne by CNPR as a result of fulfilling the universal service obligations (basic scenario) and the net cost of the same provider in the case it would operate exclusively on commercial bases, without the universal service obligations (reference scenario).
The decision will be communicated to CNPR and will become effective on the date of its communication.
