By Decision No. 249 of 20.04.2016 the Communications Regulation Commission adopted a Draft Decision on definition, analysis and assessment of the wholesale market of call origination at a fixed location of public telephone networks and of the wholesale market of call termination at a fixed location on individual public telephone networks following a procedure of public consultation.

Pursuant to the provisions of the Law on Electronic Communications the Draft Decision shall be sent for consideration to the European Commission, the Body of European Regulators in the field of Electronic Communications and to the National Regulatory Authorities of the EU Member States.

The Draft Decision and the results of the conducted public consultation have been published on the CRC’s website www.crc.bg, under the section “Public consultation”

By Decision No. 250 of 20.04.2016 the Communications Regulation Commission adopted a Draft Decision on definition, analysis and assessment of the market of voice calls termination on individual mobile networks following a public consultation procedure.

Pursuant to the provisions of the Law on Electronic Communications the Draft Decision shall be sent for consideration to the European Commission, the Body of European Regulators in the field of Electronic Communications and to the National Regulatory Authorities of the EU Member States.

The Draft Decision and the results of the conducted public consultation have been published on the CRC’s website www.crc.bg, under the section “Public consultation”

The II^nd ERGP (European Regulators Group for Postal Services) Steering Group (SG) meeting was held on 21^st April 2016 in Sofia under the chairmanship of Mr. Veselin Bozhkov, PhD – Chairman of the Communications Regulation Commission and ERGP 2016 Chair.

The ERGP Chair - Mr. Veselin Bozhkov, PhD - presented his activities carried out in the first quarter of 2016, the forthcoming events which will be held inBulgaria - Stakeholder Workshop on the Medium Term Strategy, ERGP CN Meeting, ERGP Plenary Meeting and the progress in the preparation of the draft Work Programme 2017.

The SG was provided with information by the ERGP Secretariat, as well.

The subgroup Chairs reported on the state of play of the work and further activities:

I.            WG Mid-term Strategy (AGCOM - Italy)

II.            Subgroup on Regulatory accounting and price regulation (OFCOM - UK, ANCOM - Romania)

III.            Subgroup on Implementation and evolution of the USO (PTS - Sweden, AGCOM – Italy )

IV.           Subgroup on End-user satisfaction and monitoring of market outcomes, with the following work streams:

   1. the quality of service, complaint handling and consumer protection indicators 2015 – an analysis of trends (BIPT - Belgium);

   2. the core indicators for monitoring the European postal market – an analysis of trends (ANACOM - Portugal)

V.            Subgroup on Cross-border parcels delivery for e-commerce purposes (BNetzA - Germany, ARCEP - France)

VI.            Subgroup on End-to-End Competition and Access Regulation (BNetzA - Germany, RRT - Lithuania)

The meeting concluded with a discussion on the forthcoming meetings.

About ERGP

The ERGP is composed of the 28 national regulatory authorities (NRAs) for postal services of the EU, as well as national regulatory authorities from countries of the European Economic Area and countries with candidate status to join the EU.

The ERGP’s tasks are to advise and assist the European Commission in consolidating the internal market for postal services or any other matter related to postal services within its competence.

Furthermore, the ERGP is advising on and assisting the Commission with the development of the internal market for postal services and as to the consistent application in all Member States of the regulatory framework for postal services.

The Communications Regulation Commission urges all end users to proceed carefully in case they receive calls from numbers beginning with +2204. There are data available for telephone fraud carried out using such numbers where Bulgarian subscribers receive short-duration calls with the aim to incite them to call back.

Making outgoing calls to such numbers results in realization of undesired international traffic by the subscribers to destinations outside the European Union (Gambia). In order to avoid unfavourable financial consequences, CRC advises end users not to call back these numbers.

At its session held on 24.03.2016, the Communications Regulation Commission adopted a position on the application of art. 5, para. 5 of  Ordinance No 1 of 19 December 2008 on the terms and conditions for carrying out access and/or interconnection (promulgated SG, issue 5 of 20 January 2009).

The position is published under the section Areas of Regulation/Interconnection, access and leased lines.

The Communications Regulation Commission (CRC) informs the undertakings about their obligations to submit to CRC until 1 March 2016 reports on the activity for provision of electronic communications networks and/or services in 2015. This obligation arises under Art. 5, para 1 of the General requirements for provision of electronic communications.

CRC informs the undertakings that with the amendment of Art. 78 of the Law on Electronic Communications, the requirement for determining an additional deadline for submission of reports before the undertakings to be punished for the non-compliance has dropped as from 2015.

With regard to the above-mentioned, the undertakings which have not submitted to CRC reports for 2015 until 1 March 2016 shall be liable to a fine under the Art. 326 of the Law on Electronic Communications. The provided for in the law fines are between 3000 BGN and 15 000 BGN.