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

Today, November 18, the Administrative Board of the National Agency for Regulation in Electronic Communications and Information Technology (ANRCETI – www.anrceti.md) approved, in a public session, the decisions regarding designation of providers with significant power on the markets for call termination on individual fixed telephone networks and on individual mobile telephone networks. The Board Decisions will be published next week in the Official Gazette of the Republic of Moldova.

The markets for call termination on individual fixed and mobile networks comprise transmission of calls from the point of interconnection to the terminal network point (subscriber’s or terminal location).

First, the Agency performed the analysis of the mentioned markets and indentified them, by Administrative Board Decisions no. 21 and no. 20 of 15.07.2010, as susceptible to ex-ante regulation. Subsequently, the markets were subject to detailed analysis, which proved the existence of 17 providers with significant market power on the market for voice call termination on individual fixed telephone networks (JSC „Moldtelecom”, JSC „Riscom”, LLC „Sun communications”, LLC „Arax-Impex” etc.) and 3 providers with significant market power on the market for voice call termination on individual mobile telephone networks (JSC „Orange Moldova”, JSC „Moldcell” and JSC „Moldtelecom”).

Today, ANRCETI delivered the Administrative Board Decisions to the providers designated as having significant market power on the aforementioned markets and to the National Agency for Competition Protection (ANPC). Within 10 days, ANPC will include the designated providers into the List of Economic Entities with significant market power on relevant electronic communications markets and publish the list in the Official Gazette. Upon the term’s expiry, ANRCETI has the right to adopt decisions related to the special ex-ante obligations to be imposed on the given providers.

The Agency has already adopted the draft decisions on special ex-ante obligations for those 20 providers designated as having significant market power on the mentioned markets. All the draft decisions will be subject to public consultations.

November 18, 2010