Communications watchdog issues 995,900 lei worth of fines as of mid-year, Orange Romania fined 500,000 lei

In the first half of this year, the National Communications Administration and Regulation Authority (ANCOM) fined telecom, postal service and radio equipment providers an aggregate 995,900 lei, of which more than half was the fine handed down to Orange Romania for the security incident on January 14, 2020, which affected 1.92 million connections nationwide, the authority said in a release.

As of mid-year, the telecom market watchdog conducted 1,735 controls, issued 60 notifications and applied 200 warnings and 91 fines totaling 995,900 lei. The resulting amount is revenue to the state budget.

According to the cited source, ANCOM conducted 419 controls on the radio equipment and electromagnetic compatibility market, which resulted in 80 warnings and 42 fines worth 207,000 lei for non-compliant equipment in terms of electromagnetic compatibility. The highest fine on this segment, of 35,000 lei, was handed down for advertising and marketing equipment intended to cause disrupting interferences (jammers).

In the reporting period ANCOM also solved 29 notifications received from customs offices regarding the suspension of the marketing of non-compliant equipment.

As regards the electronic communications market, the regulatory authority carried out 1,080 controls and issued 60 notifications, 76 warnings and 29 fines worth 727,400 lei. Of this total, Orange was fined 500,000 lei for the security incident on January 14, 2020, which affected 1,921,096 connections (769,725 mobile data connections and 1,151,371 mobile voice and SMS connections). The duration of the incident was 405 minutes, starting with 16:54 hrs, resulting in the network being unavailable for 53.93 minutes in a single day, far past the maximum down time allowed by the license.

ANCOM also handed 14 fines worth 137,400 lei to telephone service providers, the most common irregularities consisting in the violation of the obligations regarding the conclusion of contracts with the end users. The authority issued two fines worth a total of 10,000 lei to internet access service providers, for the provision of services without a valid contract, and six fines worth 40,000 lei for providers of television and radio broadcasting services (RTV).

Providers of CATV networks were hit with five fines amounting to 28,000 lei for non-compliance with the requirements provided for in the General License. The telecom watchdog also fined a provider 12,000 lei for using a frequency without holding a license for it.

On the postal services market, ANCOM carried out 236 controls in H1, issuing 44 warnings and 20 fines worth 61,500 lei for failure to comply with the requirements in the General License.

Four of these controls targeted the Romanian Post National Company which was issued a warning as well as a fine of 5,000 lei.