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

The Administrative Board of the National Regulatory Agency for Electronic Communications and Information Technology (ANRCETI – www.anrceti.md) decided, duirng the June 21 public session, to designate JSC „Moldtelecom” as an SMP provider on two more relevant markets: the market of call origination at fixed locations in the public telephone network and the market for traffic transit in the public telephone network. The Board Decisions entered in force on the date they were adopted.

The first market comprises the service of call origination on the network segment, delimited from the fixed terminal point of the call-originating network and the first switch or a transit switch, and the second market - the services of local and national transit for all the categories of calls on the network segment between two or more interconnection points. These wholesale markets were identified by the Agency as susceptible to ex-ante regulation and analyzed in detail, which proved lack of competition and presence of significant market power of JSC „Moldtelecom” on both markets.

According to the analysis made by the Agency, JSC „Moldtelecom” holds 98% share of the first market and 100% share on the second. The authors of the analysis identified competition problems on the two markets, the risks of eventual market distortions following the use by JSC „Moldtelecom” of its SMP, as well as the specific obligations to be imposed on the SMP provider in order to prevent the abuse of market power to the detriment of competition.

The main obligations that the Agency intends to impose on JSC „Moldtelecom” are:
- admit of no discrimination of applicants requesting their networks interconnection with the SMP operator’s network for call origination and for traffic transit in the public telephone network;
- make publicly available, in the Reference Interconnection Offer, the conditions for call origination services and the information about the transit services provided;
- orientation of prices for these services for long-run incremental costs (LRIC),
- separate accounting and publication of separate accounting reports

ANRCETI delivered its decisions to JSC „Moldtelecom” and to the National Competition Protection Agency, the latter having to include this provider, within 10 days, in the List of economic entities with dominant position of the electronic communications market. According to the legislation in force, upon expiry of this term, ANRCETI shall have the right to adopt decisions on special ex-ante obligations to be imposed on JSC „Moldtelecom” in connection with its significant market power on the mentioned markets.

June 23, 2011