Friday, January 22, 2010

ANCOM consultation on draft decision for lower porting tariffs charged between telephone operators

The National Authority for Management and Regulation in Communications launches for public consultation a draft decision aimed at lowering the maximum level of the tariffs for porting telephone numbers currently charged between the telephone operators.

According to the ANCOM regulations, the costs incurred during the porting process are incumbent on the acceptor provider, from which the donor provider can recover the costs for the technical, operational and administrative activities performed for each ported number. The porting tariffs charged on the acceptor provider, by the donor provider, are designed to cover these costs and should reflect the actual costs of the porting operations. The Authority set out the maximum levels of these tariffs in 2006. In 2009, ANCOM compared the porting tariffs with those charged in other European countries and reached the conclusion that the tariffs owed by the acceptor provider to the donor provider for a ported number need to be reviewed.

Therefore, ANCOM proposes to reduce the applicable tariffs to the maximum level of EUR 7 for each ported number in the categories: geographic numbers, location-independent numbers and non-geographic numbers (other than for mobile telephony), down from the current maximum level of EUR 13. Moreover, the draft decision proposes a maximum level of EUR 5 (compared to the present EUR 11 level) for each ported number of the category non-geographic numbers for mobile telephone services.

The proposed tariff review is based on an analysis conducted by the Authority, which compared the wholesale porting tariffs charged in other European countries.

Number portability, a facility by which the telephony users can retain their telephone numbers when switching providers, was launched in Romania on 21 October 2008. In the first 14 months, more than 200,000 telephone numbers have been ported and, so far, the acceptor providers have born the entire porting cost, without charging the end-users.

The draft decision is available for consultation on the ANCOM website, here. The persons are invited to send their comments and suggestions, by 22.02.2010, at the ANCOM headquarters in 2 Delea Noua Street, Bucharest 3, directly to the Registry or by means of the Authority’s regional divisions. Comments and recommendations may also be sent by fax to +40 732 845 404 or by e-mail to consultare-(at)-ancom.org.ro.

Additional information

The benchmark analysis undertaken by ANCOM in order to establish the average porting tariff at European level showed that, as regards the portability of geographic numbers, location-independent numbers and non-geographic numbers, other than those allotted for mobile telephone services, the average porting tariff varies between EUR 49.79 in Slovakia, EUR 7.53 in France, EUR 2 in the Netherlands and EUR 0.53 in UK. Regarding the tariffs charged for the non-geographic numbers allotted for mobile telephone services, these range from EUR 33.19 in Slovakia and EUR 5 in the Netherlands to EUR 0.91 in Turkey.

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