Page 136 - SAMENA Trends - July-August 2022

REGULATORY & POLICY UPDATES SAMENA TRENDS

lar events in future. Mr Champagne stated that the major national such events. ‘I wanted to make sure that in no uncertain terms they
operators should come up with a ‘first step’ plan within 60 days understand how Canadians found the situation unacceptable and
including measures to establish emergency call roaming facilities they need to take immediate initial steps to improve the resiliency
guaranteeing no customers are without access to 911 services, of our network in Canada,’ he said. MPs have meanwhile called for
additional ‘mutual assistance’ between networks during outages, a parliamentary investigation into the network outage and tougher
and a ‘communications protocol’ to keep users informed amidst regulations relating to network resilience.

MSIT Confirms First Commercialization of Shared Rural 5G Infrastructure

South Korea’s Ministry of Science and ICT (MSIT) has announced the MSIT noted that while it had initially envisaged the initial phase
the commercialization of the first phase of shared access to 5G taking place ‘at the end of 2022’, it ultimately sought to finish in-
networks belonging to the nation’s mobile network operators specting areas where work had already been completed with a
(MNOs) in rural areas. Back in April 2021 cellcos SKT, KT and LG view to enabling access earlier than planned. Accordingly, the first
Uplus inked a deal under which they would allow shared access to phase of commercialization has now been split into two stages,
their respective 5G networks in remote coastal and farm towns, this first taking place this month, with a second scheduled for De-
with a view to accelerating the rollout of the mobile broadband cember 2022. As per the information published by the MSIT, having
technology. At that date the MSIT confirmed the signing of an completed test operations and infrastructure inspections in areas
agreement between the MNOs under which subscribers in 131 re- where network construction had been completed as of June 2022,
mote locations across the country would be able to connect to 5G it notes that the first phase of commercialization has been carried
networks, regardless of the carrier to which they subscribe. Now out in a total of 149 eups and myeons (administrative divisions)
in a press release regarding the first phase of commercialization across 22 cities and counties.

Four Applicants for 5G Auction; DoT Updates Procurement Rules

The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has published rules had specified that licensees must seek permission from the
the list of applicants for the upcoming multi-band 5G spectrum regulator to upgrade existing networks using equipment that is
auction, due to take place at the end of this month. Four not from a trusted vendor, but the new wording makes it clear that
companies have applied to participate in the tender, the three operators must also seek approval for network expansion works.
incumbent privately-owned cellcos – Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Idea As previously reported by CommsUpdate, the DoT issued a series
(Vi) and Relance Jio Infocomm (Jio) – and infrastructure Adani of licence amendments in March 2021 to limit the vendors that
Data Networks, part of Indian conglomerate Adani Enterprises. could provide equipment for telecommunications networks, citing
In a related development, meanwhile, the DoT has updated the national security concerns. Those measures were introduced
phrasing of rules regarding equipment procurement to ensure that amidst escalating tensions between New Delhi and Beijing and
only so-called ‘Trusted Products’ or gear approved by the regulator were primarily intended to prevent operators from purchasing
is used for the expansion of existing networks. Previously, the equipment from Chinese vendors such as Huawei and ZTE.

EU Antitrust Regulators Agree to T-Mobile and O2’s Czech Network Sharing

Concessions

Antitrust regulators in the EU agreed to concessions offered matter, Commission Vice-President Margrethe Vestager said: ‘The
by T-Mobile Czech Republic, O2 Czech Republic and O2 sister Commission made binding commitments offered by T-Mobile CZ,
company Czech telecoms infrastructure provider CETIN CETIN and O2 CZ that will keep the benefits of network sharing
concerning a network infrastructure sharing deal between the whilst removing technical and financial disincentives to unilateral
companies, allowing it to end its investigation. Back in 2019 the deployments and limiting information exchange, all to the benefit
European Commission accused the Czech operators of limiting of Czech mobile user’. In an effort to allay concerns, the Czech
competition via the network sharing agreement they had inked operators have offered to modernize the mobile network by
in 2011. In October last year, meanwhile, the Deutsche Telekom- building multi-standard RAN equipment in ‘certain radio frequency
controlled and PPF Group-owned units set out amendments to the layers, alongside ensuring provided investments or services have
sharing agreement after receiving feedback from rivals and end cost-based pricing’. These final commitments will now remain in
users, prompting the EU’s favorable response. Commenting on the force until 28 October 2033.
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