Tiscali 2008 Annual Report Download - page 25

•Equivalence (Gr. from 1 to 6 and 8)
•Next Generation Network (Gr. 6 and 9)
•Governance (Gr. 7, 9 and 10)
•Consumer Protection (Gr. 11-12-13-14)
and will manifest their effects on the following markets: 11 (LLU);
12 (Bitstream); 13 (Transmission circuits with dedicated capacity);
WLR (wholesale line rental); Co-location Services.
Increase in Telecom Italia retail fee and increase in wholesale
access service fees
By means of Resolution No. 719/08/CONS “Change in prices
for Telecom Italia S.p.A. access services as from 1 February
2009”, dated 23 December 2008, the increase in monthly fees
applied by Telecom Italia to residential customers for the access
service to the public telephone network from a fixed position
was approved. As from 1 February 2009, with regard to the
accesses as per categories B and C, as well as in relation to
the unidirectional in-coming connections, the fee rose from
EUR 12.14 to EUR 13.40, without prejudice to the reduction
of 50% of the fee for assisted categories and for lines held in
the name of residential customers who are entitled to the
concession of a purchasing card (so-called “Social Card”),
pursuant to Article 81 of Italian Law No. 133 dated 8 August
2008. Almost at the same time, Telecom Italia, by means of the
reference proposal for market 11 (disaggregated access to the
local network) published on 31 October 2008, proposed a
significant increase in the fees which must be paid over by
alternative Operators for use of the access network (duplex
cables). In practice, the proposal envisages an increase of 23%
for LLU lines (from EUR 7.64 a month to EUR 9.39 a month)
and 29% for shared access lines (from EUR 1.99 a month to
EUR 2.57 a month). This proposal was keenly challenged by
all the alternative Operators who considered the TI increase
request to be unjustified partly because it is clear that measures
taken on the economic conditions, capable of significantly
changing the conditions of appeal, can in fact take on the form
of a genuine inversion in the trend with respect to the promotion
of the competition on the market. Also following these challenges,
AGCOM by means of Resolution No. 91/08/CIR dated 24
December 2008
“Publication consultation relating to the approval
of the economic conditions of the Telecom Italia reference
proposal relating to wholesale disaggregated access services to
the metallic networks and sub-networks and to co-location
services for 2009”
proposed a outline of measures (submitted
for Consultation) which scales down the TI requests on the
services pertaining to market 11 and in particular establishes
the value of the fee relating to the LLU accesses as EUR 8.55
a month and the fee related to shared access accesses as EUR
1.97 a month. Despite the reductions proposed by AGCOM, the
alternative Operators, in response to the consultation, confirmed
their opposition since the proposed changes in any event lead
to an increase in the costs with respect to 2008.
The authority, which in the meantime forwarded the proposal
to the European Commission as standard procedure, will make
its final decision by means of approval Resolution in the first
few months of 2009.
Protection of the consumer and quality of the services
AGCOM introduced various measures for increasing the
transparency of the telecommunications market and for
protecting the end users.
The most significant include Resolution No. 244/08/CSP
“Additional provisions concerning quality and service charters
for internet access services from fixed positions supplementing
resolution No. 131/06/CSP” which amends/supplements the
quality indicators (for internet access from a fixed position)
already established by the previous resolution, also foreseeing
a “third body” which, upon the appointment of the Authority
will have to handle the gauging activities and provide the service
for assessing the quality of Internet access from a fixed position,
to the end users who request this service. Furthermore, under
Resolution No. 381/08/CONS dated 30 July 2008
“Methods
for implementing the services aimed at guaranteeing
transparency on the telephone bill of the amounts charged for
services with surcharges and informing the customer of the
detection of anomalous traffic”
, the Authority carried out and
integrated the matters laid down by resolution No. 418/07/CONS
“Provisions concerning transparency of the telephone bill,
selective blocking of calls and protection of the customer”
introducing the warning service (achieved by means of sending:
SMS or registered voice messages) for presumable anomalous
traffic which should kick in when two expenditure thresholds
are jointly exceeded, comprising:
a) a variable threshold equating to triple the amount of the
average consumption in the last three two-month periods;
b) a threshold established by the operator within a maximum
amount of EUR 300, VAT inclusive, for residential customers
and EUR 500, VAT inclusive, for business customers.
Furthermore, an Inter-Operator procedure is currently being
defined, so as to contrast fraud and for the development of
software for analyzing and correlating traffic data.
Process for migration of end customers between alternative
operators
Considering that, in perspective, migration requests will undergo
an increase also in light of the improvement of the migration
processes and the greater awareness of the customer, resolution
REPORT ON OPERATIONS
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