International conference of regulatory bodies in the field of electronic communications - ROUND...

International conference of regulatory bodies in the field of electronic communications

- ROUND TABLE– ( INFOFEST, October 1st, 2012)

Vladimir Skulić Head of Radiocommunications Department

1Round table - Infofest, October 1st 2012

RATEL Serbia

• Overview in relation to:– International roaming tariffs– Protection of user rights– Market analysis and regulatory measures– Secondary trading of rights to use radio

spectrum– NGN regulation and Net neutrality– Agency independence



International roaming tariffs


• Before regulatory intervention– roaming prices were excessive and were not justified

by the underlying costs of providing the services– cross-border nature of the international roaming

market => the NRAs cannot tackle the problem of high prices at the national level

• Roaming regulation at EU level– aimed to eliminate the excessive prices and to

stimulate competition– Prices fallen, margin slightly fallen but relatively

increased, roaming market not competitive yet



• European rules– The EU Roaming regulation was adopted in 2007 and

introduced caps on roaming prices for phone calls ("Eurotariff")

– Revised rules cut phone call prices further down and introduce caps on SMS tariffs ("Euro-SMS tariff")

– Consumers are protected by an automatic safeguard against data roaming bill shocks, and caps on data tariffs (“Euro-data tariff”)



• Current position of RATEL– IRT are subject to commercial contracts

between foreign and local mobile operators– Agency has no powers to regulate IRT– Foreign operator can freely form the prices of

roaming services


International roaming tariffssample comparisons for Serbia

• Originating calls


International roaming tariffssample comparisons for Serbia

• Terminating calls and SMS


International roaming tariffscommercial interest found

• When there is commercial interest found between Serbian and its partner operator



• Only for European Economic Area (EEA)– Caps and other rules started July 1st 2012 are not

obligatory for the operators within EEA when they are making contracts with partners outside EEA

– Observer states within BEREC started initiative to get EU Commission recommendation to apply the IRT caps on the countries outside EEA, as this is not within the powers of NRA’s



Protection of user rights


• Basis is in the Electronic Communications Law, Chapter XV

– Rules on quality parameters for publicly available electronic communication services and monitoring of electronic communication activity, July 2011

– Analysis of the General Terms on Providing and Using Services in Public Communications Network

– User complaints



• Rules on quality parameters– Defines the services for which the quality parameters

are subject to Rules • public voice service in public telephone network at a fixed

location• public services in public mobile communication network• public voice service provided over the Internet• broadband access• media content transmission services

– Defines the set of parameters for each service– Defines the minimum value of the quality of service

parameters



• Analysis of General Terms– Clarity of General Terms– Assumption of right without legal basis in the Law– Limitations of the rights of subscriber– Non-compliance with the Law and Rules adopted by

Republic Agency for Electronic Communications

• Operators submitted their General Terms• Analysis is about to be finalized and further

process to be defined



• Subscribers' Complaints– subscriber may file a complaint to the operator– subscriber whose complaint has been rejected may

address the Agency or another authority to mediate

• Complaints about telecommunications operators can be submitted:– by post office or personally– by email– by Internet portal (lately most of complaints)

• Instructions and advices on how to file the complaint are also given through call centre


Report on user complaints (1)

2008 2009 2010 2011

Total number of complaints 397 385 511 694

Total number of resolved complaints 268 225 393 252

Number of signal quality complaints 45 26 71 106

Number of complaints about service bill amount

40 36 113 180

Number of breach of contract complaints

22 27 173 110

Number of Internet quality complaints 36 30 88 172

Other complaints 254 266 139 275



Complaints per service

2008 2009 2010 2011

Fixed telephony 142 101 139 71

Mobile telephony

51 95 154 349

CATV 134 106 93 83

ISP 58 65 88 172

Other 12 18 110 65



• Lowest percentage of resolved complaints– Service bill amount

• Most of user complaints in mobile are about service bill amount– Usage of data traffic on smart phones– Agency mediates and has no means to check the

amount of traffic shown on the listing

• Highest percentage of resolved complaints– Signal quality in media content transmission service– Number porting to another operator in mobile



Market analysis

and regulatory measures

Market analysisand regulatory measures

• Pursuant to the Law on electronic communications, RATEL carried out the first round of market analysis following EC 2007 Recommendation and BEREC (ERG) Guidelines

• The whole process of Market Analysis started in Sept. 2010, and ended in Nov. 2011

• 2007-2010 is the period of collected and analyzed data


The following markets have been analyzed:• Market 1 – Retail access to the public telephone network• Market 2 - Wholesale call origination on the public fixed network• Market 3 - Wholesale call termination on the public fixed network• Market 4 - Wholesale unbundled access (including shared or fully unbundled

access) to the local loop at a fixed location• Market 5 - Wholesale broadband access • Market 6 - Wholesale of leased lines • Market 7 - Wholesale call termination on public mobile telephone network• Market 8 - Media content distribution• Market 9 - Retail publicly available telephone services provided at a fixed

location




• Decisions on designating SMP operators in all relevant markets were adopted on 30 November 2011 and Regulatory obligations were imposed

• All SMP’s published their Reference Offers by May 2012

• Agency has received Regulatory reports for 2011

• The effects of the regulatory measures taken will be analyzed after the second wave of Regulatory reports is received at the beginning of 2013


Market 8Media content distribution

• Market for media content distribution is not stipulated as relevant under the Serbian Law on Electronic Communications, nor under the European Commission Recommendation

• Market definition – relevant market includes solely retail market for media contents distribution. Media contents distribution service is a single service regardless of technology (network) deployed (e.g. cable, satellite - DTH, or fixed network - IPTV)

• Market players – 81 media content distributors out of which 76 are cable operators, 3 are DTH and 2 IPTV service providers

• The three-criteria test – having applied the three-criteria test it was found that all three criteria are cumulatively met and that, hence, the retail market for media contents distribution was subjected to ex-ante regulation


Market 8Media content distribution - SMP

• One SMP identified– market share of 50% in terms of revenues and users, which is

stable over the past years – having significant advantage over the competition due to a lack

of bargaining power of customers, because it provides the service through cable network and satellite

– having significant advantages over the competition on the basis of diversification of services and economies of scale, because it is one of the major operators in the Internet market

– having significant advantages over the competition on the basis of developed sales network in towns, since it has easy access to end users


Market 8Media content distribution - measures

• Prohibition of excessive pricing• Prohibition of barriers to entry or excessive pricing or

underpricing such as to limit the competition• Prohibition of preferential treatment of an end-user • Price control• Obligation to obtain a formal approval from NRA for

price formulation and price changes for bundled services• Individual tariff control measures• Cost-oriented prices or benchmarked prices


Media contents distribution market is rapidly changing, and RATEL will closely monitor the development of potential competition in this market, especially in IPTV segment which is the fast growing in Serbia


Secondary trading ofrights to use radio spectrum

Spectrum trading

• Spectrum trading is not possible in Serbia• Electronic Communications Law Article 93,

paragraph 1&3:– The right of use of radio-frequencies granted in the

form of an individual licence can neither be renounced, nor leased nor transferred to a third party in any other way

• Exemptions are takeovers, mergers, etc…, where Agency approval is required– Agency would check if it would lead to the distortion of

competition



NGN regulation and

Net neutrality

NGN regulation and net neutrality

• RATEL is examining and analyzing the ongoing developments in the regulation of NGN networks in Europe

• There are no Rules or other Acts published at present



Agency independence

Agency independence

• By the Law and in practice Agency is independent

• Electronic Communications Law, Article 7 paragraph 2:– The Agency is functionally and financially independent of

government authorities, organizations and entities engaged in the electronic communications sector.

• Financial independence issue– The newest undergoing Set of financial laws is

potentially limiting the financial independence of the Agency ?!


Republic Agency for Electronic CommunicationsVišnjićeva 811 000 BelgradeRepublic of SerbiaPhone: +381 11 3229 970Fax: +381 11 3232 537

www.ratel.rs [email protected]

Thank you


http://www.ratel.rs/


Spare slides


• RSPG opinion, potential benefits:– facilitating market entry and exit– permitting more rapid redeployment and faster

spectrum access for innovators– allowing new technologies to gain access to spectrum

more quickly– existing operators could have benefit by selling

unused or underused spectrum – Making more flexible use of spectrum– It could be expected to promote competition



• RSPG opinion, potential drawbacks relate to:– anti-competitive behavior,– spectrum hoarding,– spectrum fragmentation,– interference control

• Whether general competition law is sufficient is complex question– market for communication services and market for

spectrum itself)– PMR vs IMT



• According to Article 9 of the Framework Directive, Member States may make provision for undertakings to transfer rights to use radio frequencies with other undertakings as long as:– there are sufficient safeguards in place to protect the public

interest,– ensure transparency and regulatory supervision of such

transfers,– provided that competition is not distorted as a result of any such

transaction,– where radio spectrum has been harmonised, any such transfer

shall not result in change of use of that frequency



• Expected role of the SMAs:– Establish clear and detailed rules for secondary trading, with

clearly defined rights and obligations for all parties involved

– observance of competition rules, detect and deal with anti-competitive behaviour, control market failure

– provide on-line registries including information on licence conditions, rights and obligations



• SMA’s should continue:– Protect spectrum rights, police obligations, investigate possible

infractions and manage disputes between users by taking binding decisions on them; this role may be expected to increase as a result of the introduction of secondary trading.

– Establish levels of acceptable interference and ensure that these levels are not exceeded.

– Ensure efficient and effective use of spectrum. This may include preventing hoarding and avoiding excessive spectrum fragmentation.

– Continue spectrum harmonisation on an international basis in a way that is sufficiently flexible, technology-neutral and dynamic enough to encourage innovation and competition



• Practices in Europe:– Widely used: Notification of the intention to trade. Different

data requested.– Here and there: Publication of information prior to the

transaction.– Widely used: Approval of transaction by NRA. Somewhere

only for parts of spectrum (those where auction or public tender took place)

– Widely used: Publication of information on the effective transaction. The level of details published is different



• Experiences:– very different transaction patterns (number of licences and

number of transactions) are observed depending on the bands– competition issues may be different in different bands and could

be treated specifically– There is still no economical analysis (benefits and drawbacks)

done on EU level– Phased introductions– No common rules


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