Telecom companies to finance Romanian telephony

Communications and IT minister Dan Nica announced that the “dominant operators” on the Romanian telecommunication market may have to pay a certain percentage of their gross revenues to a fund especially created for the “telephonisation” of the depressed, isolated areas, which are cut from all communication means.

The minister did not name the targeted companies but he explained why this measure was necessary and announced that no other hardline licences would be put up for sale.

“We should not open the competition (i.e. the competition on the hardline telephony market), only for those 20% of Romanians having a telephone line. It would be a big failure. We have to make sure that this percentage will increase to 25%, 30% or even 50% in ten years’ time,” the minister said.

However, in the absence of a mechanism compelling the operators to invest and gain new clients, the competitors would focus on certain investments in segments with high returns.

“To avoid that, we are trying to introduce a compensating mechanism such as the universal service. This means the obligation of the dominant market operators to pay a certain percentage of their gross revenues to a common cost for the universal service and which should allow for funds to be allotted to the areas lacking communication facilities,” Nica said.

The universal service means that any application for a telephone line installation should be honoured, irrespective of the technical difficulties the telephone operators might face.

The Ministry will make the Romanian operators pay for the “universal service” by issuing a law. “We need the legal basis in order to make them contribute to the universal service,” Nica said. He specified that the law draft was ready and would be submitted to Parliament.