Lithuanian Networks Growing Concern over New Telecoms Law

The GSM operators in Lithuania Omnitel, Bite GSM and Tele2 have expressed their concern about discrimination against GSM service providers as compared to entities operating in other sectors after demonoplisation of telecommunications market on January 1, 2003, and addressed President of the Republic of Lithuania Valdas Adamkus and Prime Minister Algirdas Brazauskas with a letter asking to ensure the freedom of activity for GSM service providers, as well as fair and effective competition.

The letter claims that the proposed Regulations for the Provision of GSM Services drafted by the Communications Regulatory Authority are contradicting the telecommunications regulatory principles set forth in the new Law on Telecommunications, "The draft Regulations contains very detailed provisions on contractual relations between service providers and subscribers. We are of the opinion, that the said Regulations should focus only on general terms and conditions of contractual relations between the telecommunications operators and the subscriber, leaving more freedom for the parties of the contract to agree on specific terms and conditions, thus implementing the basic freedom of contract. We think that state regulation should follow the more advanced principle of "minimum legislative interference", which is laid down in the new Law on Telecommunications and also conveys the intentions of the EU legislation.

According to the GSM operators, should the provisions of the present draft Regulations be adopted, the business environment of the GSM service providers would be less favourable than in other sectors of the economy.

"We can give an example of payment provisions in the present draft Regulations. According to the Regulations, a GSM service provider has to bear the bank charges when a subscriber is paying for services by money transfer. This requirement is not applicable to entities operating in other sectors of the economy. Moreover, traditionally it is the payer who bears the payment-related expenses - this rule is followed even in case of payment of state taxes and duties, and we can't understand why different rules should apply for GSM service providers. On the other hand, GSM operators are introducing mobile payment services that enable to make payments with the help of GSM tools. As a result, the present intentions of the Communications Regulatory Authority would undermine the e-commerce foundations and bring Lithuania even further away from the information society", - claim GSM operators in their letter.'"

Posted to the site on 27th August 2002