04.12.2020 

 

The National Authority for Management and Regulation in Communications of Romania (ANCOM) has published its 2021 Action Plan for public consultation. Next year's main projects concern the transposition into the secondary legislation of the European Electronic Communications Code and the organization of the spectrum auction for awarding usage rights for the frequencies in the bands envisaged for the provision of broadband electronic communications public networks and publicly available services. The Action Plan also includes projects related to the implementation of the Infrastructure Law and the revision of the secondary legislative framework applicable to the market for electronic communications services and postal services.

These actions will have a significant impact, mainly on the electronic communications market, but also on other sectors of the economy. Therefore, ANCOM will collaborate with all the institutions whose activity will be impacted by the expected changes, but also with the representatives of the business environment, in order to ensure the transparency of all the actions it will undertake next year.

Transposition of the EECC

Following the transposition of the provisions of the Directive on the establishment of the European Electronic Communications Code into the primary legislation, the secondary legislation will need to be consequently updated.

In this regard, during 2021, ANCOM intends to review the regulations on the general authorization regime regarding the provision of electronic communications networks and services, the procedure for awarding radio frequency usage rights, the management and administration of numbering resources, the regulations regarding communications to the Single National Emergency Call System, as well as the setting of security measures to be taken by providers and the reporting of incidents with a significant impact on the electronic communications networks or services.

Administration and management of the radio frequency spectrum

By the end of Q1 2021, the Authority intends to adopt the decision on the organization of the selection procedure for awarding usage rights for the spectrum resources available in the 700 MHz, 800 MHz, 1500 MHz, 2600 MHz, 3400-3800 MHz frequency bands, for the provision of broadband electronic communications public networks and publicly available services, which implies setting the conditions for awarding the usage rights and the rules for conducting the selection procedure.

This action will be followed by the actual organisation of the selection procedure for awarding the frequency usage rights, which is scheduled to take place in Q2 of next year.

Implementation of Law no. 159/2016

In continuation of implementing the provisions of the Infrastructure Law, in the first part of next year the Authority plans to set indicative tariffs for access to the pillars of a network operator, in pursuit of facilitating the development of electronic communications networks and of the physical infrastructure elements necessary to support them.

For the implementation of its attributions as provided by the Infrastructure Law, ANCOM intends to continue the necessary steps in order to make the inventory of the public electronic communications networks and of the associated physical infrastructure elements (ATLAS Project), which is to rely mainly on data received from the providers of public electronic communications networks in Romania.

Moreover, ANCOM will analyse the conditions for access to the physical infrastructure built with the participation or support of the central or local public administration authorities or financed, totally or partially, from public funds.

Regulation of electronic communications services

In addition to transposing the EECC into the secondary legislation, ANCOM plans to review the wholesale market for high-quality access services provided at a fixed location, to reassess the need of imposing regulatory measures, as well as the decision on collecting the statistical data in the field of electronic communications and its application.

Furthermore, in order to catalyse the benefits of technological progress to the users’ advantage, the Authority proposed to update the decision on licence-exempt radio frequencies or radio frequency bands and the regulation of amateur service.

Regulation of postal services

The updating of the general authorization regime regarding the provision of postal services, the assessment of the Regulatory Strategy in the postal services field for 2017-2020 and the elaboration of the Regulatory Strategy for 2021 - 2024 are some of the Authority’s main projects in the postal sector.

In the universal service area, next year ANCOM will update the normative act on setting the conditions and the procedure for assessing the observance of the quality objectives by the universal service provider. It will also review the weighted average cost of capital for the provision of universal service and will analyse the net cost for the provision of the universal postal service in 2019.

Public consultation

ANCOM’s Action Plan for 2021 is available, in Romanian, here. The interested persons are invited to send their suggestions and comments, by 04 January 2021, to the ANCOM headquarters (2 Delea Noua Street, Bucharest 3) using the online Registry, or to the Authority’s Regional Divisions. Comments may also be sent by fax to +40 372 845 402, or by e-mail to consultare@ancom.org.ro.