The Telecom Regulatory Authority (TRA) has passed a comprehensive legislation on 'Access and Interconnection Regulation' (A&I) which will open up the market for more competition. The regulation establishes a set of binding principles and procedures aimed at regulating all A&I services in the sultanate.
The law, issued on April 13, is set to increase competition and remove unnecessary market entry barriers, as well as boost coverage and broadband services, focusing in particular on high-speed broadband and extending coverage to rural areas.
The regulation will work on the principles that Interconnection between all public telecommunications networks shall ensure any-to-any communications and connectivity between beneficiaries; A&I services shall be provided on an equal and non-discriminatory basis to all requesting parties and wholesale customers; and provision of high quality, innovative and ubiquitous telecommunications services at a reasonable cost shall be facilitated.
Under the law, all licensees are obligated to provide Interconnection Services in accordance with the provisions of the regulation.
"All Interconnection Agreements must facilitate end-to-end connectivity by ensuring that any public telecommunications licensee is able to terminate a call or other public telecommunications service on any public telecommunications network," the law states.
The law also obligates to provide access to certain physical infrastructure and other facilities. "A public telecommunications licensee shall, upon reasonable and valid request, be obligated to negotiate and provide a requesting party with access in respect of the following facilities over which it has ownership, unless the authority determines, based on a justifiable request by the providing party, that the provision of such access is not technically or economically feasible," states the rule.
It further stated that the providing party shall be free to negotiate reasonable commercial terms and conditions with a requesting party, provided that these terms and conditions are not contrary to the interests of beneficiaries or otherwise contrary to the provisions of this regulation.
The authority during the draft proposal of the regulation had stated that the development and implementation of an effective A&I regime is central to promoting competition in the telecommunications market. "The interconnection of networks is critical to the development of competition as it enables one operator or service provider to reach subscribers on another operator's network. As such, the authority considers that all public telecom licensees should be subject to the obligation to interconnect their respective networks to ensure end-to-end connectivity," TRA said.
This also holds true for access services. "Requiring an operator that is in a position of dominance in a relevant market to offer access to its network can help to reduce market entry barriers. This is because investing in some network facilities may be very costly or very difficult to undertake. The duplication of costs also mean that it becomes commercially unviable from an economic point of view. As a result, not requiring access may limit the emergence of competition in retail markets," stated the authority.
In order to check abuse by non-dominant or dominant players, the regulation imposes strict penalties that range from RO10,000 to RO100,000.
In addition, a penalty of not less than RO1,000 shall be imposed for each day the violation continues beyond the date on which penalty is imposed. In all cases, the penalty shall be doubled for recurrence of the violation.