Romania's telecommunications authority Ancom opened a public consultation on a draft decision setting the harmonised technical conditions and the tariffs of IP interconnection-related services for fixed and mobile call termination on the public telephony networks. Ancom’s draft measures are available for consultation until 10 September, according Telecompaper. Ancom said regulatory intervention in the field of IP interconnection is appropriate in order to ensure equal opportunities for all the market players. It said alternative providers of fixed telephony services holding IP networks encounter the refusal of large operators as regards access to IP-based interconnection. These large operators maintain barriers to market entry.
IP interconnection obligations will be applicable to the 36 fixed telephony providers and to the 5 mobile telephony providers identified in 2017 as having significant power on the fixed call termination market, respectively on the mobile call termination market.
By 1 March 2019 at the latest, these providers will have to publish on their websites pieces of information on the conditions in which they offer such interconnection services. Furthermore, starting from 1 May 2019, they will have to allow access to and use specific network elements and associated facilities and apply equivalent interconnection conditions under equivalent circumstances to all the entities that request or have been benefiting from interconnection. Moreover, the authority also proposes tariffs for IP interconnection-related services, following a European benchmarking analysis and the review of the costing models previously used by Ancom in respect of certain interconnection-related services.
With a view to collecting and analysing the data needed to identify the harmonised national technical requirements applicable to future IP interconnections, the authority created a joint working group together with representatives of the electronic communications industry and specialists in modern IP technologies and considered the views of 20 fixed and mobile telephony operators that were typical for the market.
