Austrian National Council Passes Amendment of Telecommunications Act
Vienna, June 18, 2009: The Austrian National Council passed an amendment of the Telecommunications Act. The amendment allows for a more economical rollout of new fixed net infrastructure and replacement of the existing infrastructure. Furthermore, changes in the regulatory framework support an improved return on investments in infrastructure.
Vienna, June 18, 2009: The Austrian National Council passed an amendment of the Telecommunications Act. The amendment allows for a more economical rollout of new fixed net infrastructure and replacement of the existing infrastructure. Furthermore, changes in the regulatory framework support an improved return on investments in infrastructure.
The amendment of the Telecommunications Act includes:
- Improved Right of Way
In general, infrastructure rollout requires the right of way from landowners, which in the past has often been difficult, lengthy and costly to obtain.
The amendment provides for an acceleration and simplification of the granting of the right of way and now also includes the right of way for houses, the use of ex-isting in-house cable ducts and street ducts for the rollout of new lines and the replacement of existing lines.
The maximum length for proceedings to obtain the right of way has been short-ened from 4 and a half months to a maximum of 3 months for private landowners.
For public real estate the respective administrator has 4 weeks to justify why the proposed route of lines is not possible and is obliged to propose an alternative route. Until now, there has been no time limit and an alternative proposal was not required.
Furthermore the automatism that Telekom Austria has to cover the cost for the relocation of existing infrastructure in the case of street and railway constructions has been replaced by a negotiation process between parties involved. - Rights of Joint Use Introduced
In order to limit the construction of new network infrastructure the amendment passed includes the right of joint use of existing lines and cable ducts of telecommunication companies, cable operators and for the first time also infrastructure of utility companies for an appropriate fee. This is designed to facilitate potential cooperation between operators in planning and rolling out future fixed net infrastructure. - Regulatory Framework
The regulatory framework of the Telecommunications Act has been slightly adjusted to take better account of the current market situation and the expected developments.
The scope of the market analysis has been broadened and provisions have been adopted that require the Regulatory Authority to take into consideration comprehensive competition from other operators, the regional competitive land-scape as well as the impact of a regulatory decision on potential future investment when analyzing the significant market power status of a company. Furthermore, the implication on potential future investments has to be taken into account by the Regulatory Authority when price regulation is applied.
The Telecommunications Act is expected to take effect upon its publication in the Federal Legal Gazette in August 2009.
Contact:
Peter E. Zydek
Head of Investor Relations
Telekom Austria Group
Tel.: +43 (0)59059 – 119 000
E-mail: peter.zydek@telekom.at
