08.11.2018

”We have completed the national consultation on a decision that harmonises the technical requirements and tariffs of ancillary services for IP interconnection, for fixed and mobile call termination on public telephone networks. Our goal is to ensure equal opportunities for all the players in the Romanian market, in the context of the large operators’ refusal to grant access to IP-based interconnection for alternative fixed call service providers holding IP networks. The uptake of IP-based technologies creates benefits both for operators, due to the lower implementation and operating costs and enabling the development of new business models, and for end-users, who enjoy greater value-for-money.”, declared Eduard Lovin, vice-president of ANCOM, on the occasion of an ANCOM Consultative Council meeting during which the Authority, together with the industry, debated and agreed a set of measures for identifying and regulating the harmonised technical conditions for IP interconnection and the tariffs of ancillary services for IP interconnection.

The agreed set of regulatory measures will be sent for European consultation to the European Commission, BEREC and to the fellow regulators in the EU member states, who may send comments and suggestions to ANCOM within one month since the notification date. Upon completion of the European consultation procedure, ANCOM may adopt the set of measures.

Obligations of telephony service providers

According to the measures proposed by ANCOM, fixed and mobile telephony providers have the obligation to publish information on the conditions under which they offer such interconnection services, on their websites, no later than 1 April 2019.

Other obligations concern the granting of access and the use of specific network elements and associated infrastructure, and the application of equivalent interconnection conditions under equivalent circumstances to all entities requesting or already benefiting from interconnection, from 1 May 2019.

Tariffs of ancillary services for IP interconnection

Among the outcomes of this meeting we also count setting the maximum tariffs that operators may charge for the provision of the collocation service, i.e. EUR 9.47/rack unit if a standard rack is used in a building where the beneficiaries’ equipment can be collocated, and EUR 15/m² if an operator intends only to rent usable area in a collocation facility is situated in urban areas.

The list of providers envisaged by this regulation is available here.

Benefits of IP interconnection

Migration to the new IP networks involves changes in both network architecture and service delivery, generating benefits for the entire market.

Moreover, IP-based networks integrate an operator's whole electronic communications traffic on a single network, which triggers lower unit cost per service along with higher traffic volumes.

Furthermore, IP architectures enable the traffic distributed by multiple local nodes to be aggregated in one location (where all traffic is concentrated), which also leads to a decrease in overall operating costs.

Service convergence leads to cost savings due to the shared use of resources integrated on a single network for the provision of multiple types of products/services or activities.

Another benefit is that this type of interconnection features a high degree of flexibility and facilitates adjustments according to requirements, as well as to the technological advancements.

Furthermore, electronic communications traffic carried by IP packets instead of using a dedicated channel for allocated for each call increases network efficiency. A packet switched network routes the packets over those parts of the network that have the necessary resources and is able to re-route packets when a router is busy.

As far as end-users are concerned, they can receive - on the same physical support - a larger number of services (voice, data, video) of higher quality than traditional ones, at lower prices.