RomTelecom loses interconnection fees appeal

The Bucharest Court of Appeal yesterday rejected national fixed line operator RomTelecom’s request to suspend a decision by the National Regulatory Authority for Communications (ANRC) for the telco to decrease its interconnection rates. In October 2005 the ANRC imposed an obligation on the incumbent operator to reduce its interconnection tariffs in two stages, to take effect on 1 January 2006 and 1 January 2007. RomTelecom subsequently took the regulator to court over the decision and requested the tariff ruling to be suspended during the trial. ‘Interconnection tariffs are the key to competition and it is ANRC’s objective to develop competition, because the Romanian market cannot remain any longer under the dominance of one single operator. The consumers will soon see the advantages of this decision,’ Dan Georgescu, ANRC president, declared.