- In its analysis, ARCEP observed the following difficulties:

• Increasing consumer dissatisfaction with understanding how the market operates, with understanding pricing and the ethical control of content available on VAS numbers
• Increasing numbers of players involved in providing these numbers, in particular because of the increase in the number of local loop operators offering telephone services, rendering the value chain even more complex
• The absence of an explicit obligation to route calls to all VAS numbers
• Invoicing and collection problems

ARCEP proposes the following two types of obligation be implemented:

• an obligation of accessibility for VAS numbers imposed on operators present at each end of the value chain (i.e. the originating operators and the users of the VAS numbers), which must grant reasonable requests for access to the numbers under objective, transparent and non-discriminatory conditions, without prejudice to the right to cut off or suspend this right in the event of fraud or failure to respect deontological rules
• an invoicing obligation for the calls concerned, imposed on the originating operators, including the collection of outstanding payments, where appropriate. These operators must grant reasonable requests from other operators under objective and non-discriminatory conditions.

Here you can find the full text of the press release.

Posted on November 30th, 2006 by lbraum
Filed under: France