S.C. Roc Tel S.R.L. - S.C. Romtelecom S.A.

Plaintiff
S.C. Roc Tel S.R.L.

Respondent
S.C. Romtelecom S.A.

Date when the complaint was filed
September 3, 2003

Description
The plaintiff S.C. Roc Tel S.R.L. required, in dispute with the respondent S.C. Romtelecom S.A., a decrease of tariffs for local call termination in the public fixed telephone network by means of ISDN PRA flows, given the tariff differences operated for certain subscriber categories.

The plaintiff claimed at ANRC that the respondent is in breach of the provisions of Articles 5 and 6 of the Competition Law no.21/1996, as the former is discriminated both against the providers of electronic communications networks and services having access to the public network of S.C. Romtelecom S.A. through interconnection, and against the end-users having access to this network through ISDN PRA flows. Thus, the providers having access thorugh interconnection are offered certain tariffs, as regulated by the ANRC President’s Decision no.147/2002 on the principles and prerequisites of the reference offer for interconnection with the public fixed telephone network, while S.C. Roc Tel S.R.L is offered different tariffs, which are much higher, as presented in the comparative study drawn up by the plaintiff. As well, the end-users requesting ISDN PRA flows benefit from lower tariffs, provided that S.C. Roc Tel S.R.L. uses the same technical resources as the end-users. The plaintiff considers that the tariffs charged by the respondent should cover only the costs of the link between the two networks. The plaintiff is dissatisfied with the fact that, starting with October 1st, 2003 the tariffs are to increase and required ANRC to impose on the respondent the obligation to reduce these tariffs.

The plaintiff requests the decrease of tariffs for termination of local calls in the respondent’s network, having regard to the difference between the tariffs offered to the rest of the respondent’s subscribers and the tariffs offered to S.C. Roc Tel S.R.L., given the fact that both the plaintiff and the subscribers use the networks of S.C. Romtelecom S.A. in the same conditions. S.C. Romtelecom S.A. defended itself claiming that it does not apply discriminatory treatment to S.C. Roc Tel S.R.L. Thus, all the providers of electronic communications networks and services who request ISDN PRA flows for traffic termination in the public fixed network benefit from the same commercial terms, upon the conclusion of the same standard-agreements for the provision of Internet services by which they offer publicly available voice telephony. The tariffs offered to the providers who terminate traffic in the public fixed network are different from the tariffs offered to the end-users, because the services provided to the two categories are different. Thus, the respondent offer the providers of electronic communications networks and services access to the S.C. Romtelecom S.A. users with a view to terminating traffic originated by others than the provider itself, for the purpose of obtaining profit. As well, these tariffs are different from the tariffs for the interconnection services, since the two types of access services, provided by means of ISDN flows of by means of interconnection, require two different technical solutions and trigger different costs.