The parliament intends to grant the National Communications Regulation Commission the right to determine the telecommunications operators that have significant influence on the market of telecommunications services.
The relevant draft law (No. 2149), which is entitled “On Amendments to the Law of Ukraine on Telecommunications (regarding determination of the market of telecommunications access services),” was approved by 256 votes; only 226 votes were required for its approval.
The draft law stipulates that the commission is to exercise this right on the basis of statistical report obtained from operators and providers of telecommunications services.
According to the draft law, a telecommunications operator with a significant influence on the market of telecommunications services is an operator whose gross revenues from provision of services involving access to its telecommunications networks (fixed or mobile) in the preceding nine months exceeds 25% of the total gross revenues that all the telecommunications operators on the market earned from granting access to their telecommunications networks during the same period.
According to the draft law, telecommunications access services are services that one operator provides to another and involves passage of traffic between the equipment of consumers.
The draft law also provides for granting the National Communications Regulation Commission the right to determine the rates for interconnection of the networks of telecommunications operators that have significant market influence (the active legislation grants the commission the right to set such rates only for operators that are considered monopolies on the telecommunications market).
According to the explanatory note to the draft law, adoption of the draft law will improve competition on the telecommunications market.
As Ukrainian News earlier reported, the National Communications Regulation Commission ordered the monopolies on the telecommunications market on July 5 to conduct mutual settlements for interconnection of their networks based on the rates that were set by the commission.
