National Regulatory Agency for Electronic Communications and Information Technology of the Republic of Moldova

JSC „Moldtelecom” has been placed under the obligation to orient the tariffs applied for fixed telephone services to average unitary costs calculated based on the separate accounting system. This provision is contained in ANRCETI Administrative Board Decision (doc. in state language) regarding imposition of special ex-ante obligations on JSC „Moldtelecom” given its significant market power on the market for end-users’ (natural and legal persons) access to the public telephone network at fixed locations. This Decision was approved in a public session of the Board and published in the Official Gazette on June 8, 2012.

Previously, ANRCETI identified this market as susceptible to ex-ante regulation and designated JSC „Moldtelecom” as an SMP operator on this market (ANRCETI Board Decision no. 11 of 26.05.2011). The analysis of this market showed that JSC „Moldtelecom” holds 96,8% of this market in terms of subscribers.

In order to prevent abusive use of SMP by JSC „Moldtelecom” to the detriment of competition and end users, ANRCETI imposed a number of special ex-ante obligations on this provider, the main one being cost-orientation of tariffs for fixed telephone services. Thus, JSC „Moldtelecom” has the obligation to use no excessive tariff practices in relation to the cost of fixed telephone service provision, as well as the practice of ruining competitors in the process of service provision.

According to the mentioned decision, if necessary, JSC „Moldtelecom” has to submit six categories of tariffs to ANRCETI for approval: for the connection of a subscriber line, for subscriptions, for local calls, national (long-distance) and international outgoing, for calls to numbers from mobile networks, to numbers independent of location, to short non-geographic, except for calls free of charge for subscribers, established through legislation or regulations. The tariffs will be calculated by JSC „Moldtelecom” based on the methodology approved by ANRCETI. The tariffs will be justified by calculations and documents enabling ANRCETI to carry out their complete analysis.

ANRCETI Decision prescribes that the weighted average of the tariffs for fixed telephony must be oriented to average unitary costs of services, while the structure of these tariffs should allow the full coverage of costs related to retail services, without generating excessive profits.

By this decision, JSC „Moldtelecom” was also obliged to offer to its end users non-discriminatory conditions of access to the public telephone network at fixed locations, to impose no conditions such as provision of services against end-users’s acceptance of some additional services - not related to the requested, including the purchase of service packages containing access services and call services.

June 8, 2012