Posted by Emil A. Georgiev on 25 November, 2009
Silver Server, an Austrian ISP, approached the National Railways of Austria (ÖBB) and requested access to their infrastructure, particularly their communications lines. Silver Server grounded their request on the joint-use right as outlined in Articles 8 and 9 of the Austrian Telecommunications Act 2003. Upon ÖBB’s refusal Silver Server referred the case to the Telecom-Control Commission (TKK) which regulates the Austrian telecommunications market.
In its recently issued decision, the TKK held ÖBB liable to grant Silver Server access pursuant to their request. In accordance with Austrian administrative law, TKK’s decision serves as a so called “contract substituting ruling”. For this reason the TKK has employed great detail in drafting and has for a first time in a matter of joint-use provided for precise conditions (e.g. definite rental price) and a share of responsibilities (e.g. performance guarantee, maintenance obligations) between the parties.
The decision is noteworthy because it extends the scope of the Telecommunications Act beyond the sector of electronic communication and affirms its applicability also to somewhat unusual market players such as the national railway company.
Posted in communication, regulatory affairs | Tagged: austria, joint-use, railways, regulatory authority, surrogate, telecom-control commission, wayleaves | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Emil A. Georgiev on 22 November, 2009
Austria’s DerStandard informs that the data retention bill to amend the existing Austrian Telecommunications Act was in place. In a consultation procedure, the responsible minister Doris Bures has called upon the appraisal of the participants (eg regional authorities, chamber for commerce and industry, trade unions). She thereby vowed to apply “the highest standards under the rule of law” in drafting the bill.
Austria has not implemented the data retention directive yet, wherefore the European Commission threatened the government with the launch of infringement proceedings. Austrian politicans have used the data retention related set of problems in their last election campaign in 2008. For some period thereafter and, since the subject matter is highly controversial, noone appears willing to cease the delay in implementation.
Quite often, the enforcers of intellectual property rights have been viewed as the real beneficiaries of the data retention becoming a fact. Many of their lobbyists and legal representatives utilized the duration caused by the governmental delay in addressing the public and stating the necessity to access retained internet traffic data that evidences, for instance, illegal file sharing. However and given an implementation, it is still unclear as to whether such enforcers shall have access to data so retained.
According to recent cases on file sharing, Austrian courts seem to opine that file sharers’ interest in the protection of their traffic and identity data outweighs the enforcers’ interests to access such data.
It is clear that the data retention could easily change the so established balance. I hope to soon have certainty on that.
Posted in data protection, enforcement, privacy, regulatory affairs | Tagged: austria, copyright, data retention, enforcement, file-sharing | 1 Comment »
Posted by Emil A. Georgiev on 29 October, 2009
The Commission today moved to the second phase of an infringement proceeding over the UK to provide its citizens with the full protection of EU rules on privacy and personal data protection when using electronic communications. European laws state that EU countries must ensure the confidentiality of people’s electronic communications like email or internet browsing by prohibiting their unlawful interception and surveillance without the user’s consent. As these rules have not been fully put in place in the national law of the UK, the Commission today said that it will send the UK a reasoned opinion.
Specifically, the Commission has identified three gaps in the existing UK rules governing the confidentiality of electronic communications:
- There is no independent national authority to supervise interception of communications, although the establishment of such authority is required under the ePrivacy and Data Protection Directives, in particular to hear complaints regarding interception of communications.
- The current UK law – the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 (RIPA) – authorises interception of communications not only where the persons concerned have consented to interception but also when the person intercepting the communications has ‘reasonable grounds for believing’ that consent to do so has been given. These UK law provisions do not comply with EU rules defining consent as freely given specific and informed indication of a person’s wishes.
- The RIPA provisions prohibiting and providing sanctions in case of unlawful interception are limited to ‘intentional’ interception only, whereas the EU law requires Members States to prohibit and to ensure sanctions against any unlawful interception regardless of whether committed intentionally or not.
The UK has two months to reply to this second stage of the infringement proceeding. If the Commission receives no reply, or if the response presented by the UK is not satisfactory, the Commission may refer the case to the European Court of Justice.
This is a signal that data protection and privacy are considered highly valuable achievments to protect within the european dimension.
Posted in regulatory affairs | Tagged: data protection, european commission, privacy, ripa, uk | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Emil A. Georgiev on 8 May, 2009
The European Commission has set out clear guidance for EU telecoms regulators on the cost-based method to be used when calculating termination rates – the wholesale fees charged by operators to connect the call from another operator’s network which are part of everyone’s phone bill. The guidance is in the form of a “Recommendation” that national regulators are obliged to take “the utmost account” of.
The Recommendation indicates specifically that termination rates at national level should be based only on the real costs that an efficient operator incurs to establish the connection. Eliminating price distortions between phone operators across the EU will lower consumer prices for voice calls within and between Member States, saving business and household customers at least EUR 2 billion in 2009-2012, and help investment and innovation in the entire telecoms sector.
Mobile termination rates varied widely in the EU in 2008 from 2.00 euro cents per minute (in Cyprus) to 15 euro cents per minute (in Bulgaria). Mobile termination rates (on average 8.55 euro cents per minute) are also typically 10 times higher than fixed termination rates (on average ranging from 0.57 to 1.13 euro cents per minute).
Posted in regulatory affairs | Tagged: bulgaria, EU, mobile telephony, regulation, telecom, termination rates | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Emil A. Georgiev on 29 January, 2009
The European Commission (EC) has submitted
a letter to the Bulgarian telecoms regulator, the Communications Regulation Commission (CRC) asking the latter to to take action to further reduce mobile termination rate. Operators charge each other so called “termination rates” that are due when a call originated by a subscriber within the network of one operator is to be connected to a subscriber of another operator’s network.
Not surprisingly, in 2008, mobile termination rates in Bulgaria were, with 15.09 eurocent/minute, the highest in the EU (EU average: 8.7 eurocent/minute). The EC also asks CRC not to discriminate when setting the level of termination rates between fixed and mobile networks and to apply similar termination rates for mobile calls originating from other mobile and fixed networks.
In its draft measure, the CRC set a target to achieve mobile termination rates at a level of 7.6 eurocents/minute (for peak traffic) in 2010. However, according to the European Regulators Group, which brings together the EU’s 27 national telecoms regulators, this level is already undercut today by many Member States: Cyprus (2.01 eurocents/minute), Sweden (4.55 eurocents), Finland (5.29 eurocents), Austria (6 eurocents), Slovenia (6.38 eurocents), Romania (6.78 eurocents) and France (6.85 eurocents).
So, thank you EU, for this expected decrease of rates which, I beleive, would never have come by virtue of the national regulator being actually in charge to further competition and subscriber protection.
Posted in regulatory affairs | Tagged: bulgaria, european union, mobile telephony, termination rates | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Emil A. Georgiev on 10 December, 2008
Hi everybody out there,
finally I decided to create my own blog and to use it in order to share usefull information in the course of my interests. The most of the information to be made available hereon will to some extent, but without limitations -), have a legal background.
For those wondering about this blog’s name: it is a quotation from Guy Ritchie’s “Snatch” – a film I strongly recommend.
So, let’s get it started with my promise to provide you with some interesting perceptions from the matters I deal with daily.
Cheers!
Posted in regulatory affairs | Tagged: IPR, legal, regulatory affairs | Leave a Comment »
