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ANCOM Fined Romtelecom with RON 200,000
04.07.2012
ANCOM applied a RON 200,000 fine to S.C. ROMTELECOM S.A. for not having fully observed the obligations under the mobile communications licence held in the 410-415/420-425 MHz frequency bands. According to the undertaken obligations, this operator was due to install and to operate 1,242 base stations by the end of the first phase. Nonetheless, the ANCOM controls revealed that only 788 base stations are installed.
Romtelecom obtained the aforementioned licence in 2008, for a 10-year period, following a comparative open public tender – a procedure under which the tenderers are assessed in accordance with their file and technical offer. Romtelecom won this licence upon obtaining the best score, following the evaluation of certain criteria such as the financial capacity, the commercial feasibility, the specialization, the experience and, not in the last row, the technical feasibility and the assumed coverage. The operator paid to the state budget a licence fee which amounted to one million euros. The licence is valid until 23 September 2018.
As a result of the control actions conducted by ANCOM, the Authority found that the operator failed to observe the commitment undertaken when obtaining the licence.
According to the licence, by 31 December 2013, the broadband mobile communications network developed by Romtelecom in the 410-415/420-425 MHz bands must comprise 1,292 base stations, as these are defined in the Radio Regulations, the official document of the International Telecommunication Union.
“ANCOM must ensure that the radio spectrum, a scarce resource of the Romanian state, is used with a maximum of efficiency. The licences for the use of radio frequencies are awarded under certain conditions precisely to enable the operators and the users to obtain maximum of benefits from the use of this resource. Therefore, monitoring the way in which the operator remedies the assessed irregularities and observes the other undertaken obligations will remain a priority for the Authority in the following period”, the Director of the Monitoring and Control Executive Division within ANCOM, Mr. Cristin Popa, said.
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