STATUTORY INSTRUMENTS.

S.I. No. 249 of 1999.

EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES (INTERCONNECTION IN TELECOMMUNICATIONS) (AMENDMENT) REGULATIONS, 1999.

S.I. No. 249 of 1999.

EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES (INTERCONNECTION IN TELECOMMUNICATIONS) (AMENDMENT) REGULATIONS, 1999.

I, MARY O'ROURKE, Minister for Public Enterprise, in exercise of the powers conferred on me by section 3 of the European Communities Act, 1972 ( No. 27 of 1972 ), and for the purpose of giving effect to Directive 98/61/EC of 24 September 1998 ¹ of the European Parliament and of the Council amending Directive 97/33/EC ² with regard to operator number portability and carrier pre-selection hereby make the following Regulations:

1. These Regulations may be cited as the European Communities (Interconnection in Telecommunications) (Amendment) Regulations, 1999.

2. The European Communities (Interconnection in Telecommunications) Regulations, 1998 ( S.I. No. 15 of 1998 ), are hereby amended--

(a) in Regulation 2(1), by the insertion of the following definitions:

“subscriber” means any person who is party to a contract with an organisation for the supply of public telecommunications services;

“geographic number” means a number from the national numbering scheme where part of its digit structure contains geographic significance used for routing calls to the physical location of the network termination point of the subscriber to whom the number has been assigned;

(b) by the substitution for paragraph (8) of Regulation 13 of the following paragraph:

“(8) The Director shall encourage the earliest possible introduction of a number portability facility whereby subscribers who so request can retain their numbers on the fixed public telephone network and the Integrated Services Digital Network (herein after referred to as ISDN) independent of the organisation providing the service, in the case of geographic numbers at a specific location and, in the case of other than geographic numbers, at any location.”,

(c) by the substitution for paragraph (9) of Regulation 13 of the following paragraph:

“(9) Notwithstanding paragraph (8), an organisation to which numbers have been allocated by the Director from the national numbering scheme shall ensure that a number portability facility is available in accordance with a schedule to be produced by the Director and agreed by the Minister, with a facility for portability for numbers other than geographic numbers to be available before the first day of January, 2000 and portability for geographic numbers to be available as soon as possible thereafter, but no later than 31 December, 2000.”, and

(d) by the insertion in Regulation 13 of the following paragraphs:

“(13) Organisations licensed under section 111(2)(a)(i), (ii) and (v) of the Act of 1983 and designated by the Director as having significant market power pursuant to regulation 5 or any organisation so directed by the Director, shall enable their subscribers, including those using ISDN, to access the switched services of any interconnected provider of publicly available telecommunications services.

(14) An organisation referred to in paragraph (13) shall ensure that a facility to allow subscribers to choose the services referred to in paragraph (13) by means of pre-selection with a facility to override any pre-selected choice on a call-by-call basis by dialling a short prefix is available before the first day of January, 2000.

(15) An organisation providing or offering to provide interconnection shall ensure that charges for interconnection related to the provision of the facilities referred to in paragraph (14) are cost-oriented and that direct charges to consumers, if any, do not act as a disincentive for the use of the facilities.”.

EXPLANATORY NOTE.

(This note is not part of the Instrument and does not purport to be a legal interpretation.)

The purpose of these Regulations is to amend the European Communities (Interconnection in Telecommunications) Regulations, 1998 ( S.I. No. 15 of 1998 ), to bring forward the introduction of a number portability facility from 1 January 2003 to initial introduction on 1 January 2000, with full availability by 31 December 2000; to extend this facility to the ISDN; and to introduce a carrier pre-selection with call-by-call over-ride facility on 1 January, 2000.

¹ O.J. No. L199 of 26.7.1997, p. 32

² O.J. No. L268 of 3.10.1998, p. 37