The Telecommunications Authority of Trinidad and Tobago (the Authority) released its third and final draft of Recommendations for Interconnection and Access Policy in September 2005. This note summarizes the key elements of the Policy.
The Interconnection and Access Policy aims to:
- Increase the choice of telecommunications networks and service providers available to the civil and business communities and the public in general
- Help realize competitive retail prices,
- Create an environment which encourages investment in the telecommunications sector which will result in improving the quality and range of service, especially in the most challenged areas of the country, and
- Honor the country’s commitment to the World Trade Agreement (WTO) under the General Agreement for Trade and Services (GATS) for the telecommunications sector.
Matters Covered by the Policy Statement
The Policy Statement sets out the obligation of concessionaires [1] to interconnect, the arrangements for negotiating access, interconnection pricing, the requirement for a Reference Interconnection Offer, quality of service standards, and dispute resolution procedures.
The Authority has issued the “Access to Facilities Regulations”. The Regulations set out requirements on concessionaires to grant access to their facilities, including unbundling and collocation requirements.
Obligation to Interconnect
Concessionaires are obliged to interconnect to facilitate the delivery of quality services to a wide cross section of end-users at affordable prices.
All concessionaires must provide interconnection on request at any technically feasible network point on a cost-orientated and non-discriminatory basis. Concessionaries are required to provide access to:
- The local loop,
- Line side facilities including, but not limited, to the connection between a loop termination at the main distribution frame and the switch line card,
- Trunk side facilities including, but not limited to, the trunk-side cross connect panel and a switch truck card,
- Trunk connect facilities including, but not limited to, the connection between trunk termination at the cross connect panel and a switch trunk card,
- Interoffice transmission facilities,* The signaling network including, but not limited to, signaling links and signaling transfer points, and
- Service control points.
The eligibility of any concessionaire to participate in interconnect arrangements is dependent on its capability to meet the basic obligation of reciprocity. Any concessionaire must provide access to its own interconnection services, if it wishes to obtain access to another concessionaire’s interconnection services. Concessionaires must not discriminate in the terms of supply or the prices of interconnection services or access to facilities.
Negotiating Access Arrangements
The Authority encourages commercially negotiated infrastructure sharing arrangements where possible among concessionaires. To assist negotiations, the Authority will provide a system to estimate efficient start-up costs for interconnection.
Concessionaires must take all reasonable steps to conclude an access agreement within forty-two days of a request to negotiate access, unless an extension of time is granted by the Authority.
Concessionaires must make interconnection arrangements available to the Authority and to the public. Specifically, all concessionaires must lodge their interconnection agreements with the Authority within 28 days of the agreement coming into force.
The Authority is responsible for ensuring that no operator selectively or otherwise withholds information that is necessary for efficient and timely interconnection implementation.
Interconnection Pricing
The Authority may establish costing models, methodologies or formulae to be used to establish interconnection charges, and/or to resolve interconnection disputes between concessionaires. Concessionaires must base access charges on any such cost methodologies, models or formulae as specified by the Authority from time to time.
Asymmetries between fixed and mobile interconnection charges should reflect differences in the efficient costs of supply. Where measures are not in place to determine the efficient costs of the mobile and fixed networks, the Authority must use benchmarking to estimate the costs.
Concessionaires may set separate peak and off-peak interconnection charges, in keeping with the principle of efficient cost-based pricing. This will enable the interconnecting parties to set differentiated peak and off-peak retail prices.
Concessionaires are not allowed to include access deficit contributions in interconnection charges. However, where the Authority is satisfied that an access deficit exists, it may authorize rate rebalancing.
Quality of Service
The quality of interconnection services is governed by standards prescribed by the Authority. These will be published in Quality of Service Regulations. (In April 2006, the Authority published a draft of the proposed Network Quality of Service Regulations for public comment.)
Provider Pre-Selection
All concessionaires will be required to configure their networks to enable customers to pre-select the international service provider of their choice.
Reference Interconnection Offer
Upon request from the Authority a concessionaire must submit its Reference Interconnection Offer to the Authority for review and authorization prior to it coming into force.
The Reference Interconnection Offer must set out standards of performance for the installation, maintenance, testing and repair of interconnection services. These standards must not be lower than standards for equivalent services or resources the interconnection provider supplies to itself, its subsidiaries, or its partners.
Dispute Resolution
Parties to an interconnection dispute can refer the matter to the Authority. Any interconnection matter referred to the Authority as a dispute shall be resolved in a manner specified in the Enforcement and Compliance Regulations issued by the Authority, namely by:
- Conciliation
- Mediation
- Arbitration
The decisions or findings of conciliation and mediation panels are not binding upon the parties. However, decisions of the Arbitration Panel are binding.
At the conclusion of any dispute resolution process, whether it is a final decision or otherwise, the resolution panel must fix the costs of the process and decide which of the parties shall bear those costs, or in what proportion the costs shall be shared by the parties. Regardless of the mechanism adopted for the resolution process the decision as to costs is binding on all parties.
Endnotes:
[1] The term “concessionaire” is used to mean a person or an entity authorized to operate a public telecommunications network or provide a telecommunications service or broadcasting service under section 21 of the Telecommunications Act 2001.