Autoridade Nacional de Comunicações
Regulation
(This is not an official translation of the law)
Regulation on provision of statistical information
ANACOM requires undertakings providing electronic communication services and networks to regularly report a set of indicators of a statistical nature; this enables monitoring of the various markets and services and oversight of compliance with provider obligations, the definition of relevant markets and assessment of significant market power, as well as performance of ANACOM’s other assigned responsibilities.
In view of the technological and market developments that have occurred since the entry into force of the previous questionnaires in 2010 and 2011, ANACOM decided to carry out a comprehensive review of obligations as regards the regular provision of information by providers.
In this context, by determination of 7 July 2016, ANACOM decided to initiate the procedure for drafting of a regulation, announcing it according to the provisions set forth in article 98 (1) of the Code of Administrative Procedure.
After the expiration of the deadline set for interested parties to present the contributions and suggestions they deemed appropriate to be considered within the scope of this regulatory procedure and after analysing all the contributions, ANACOM adopted, by determination of 13 October 2016, the Draft Regulation on the provision of statistical information, which was submitted to the regulatory consultation procedure, running for a period of 30 business days, as stipulated in article 10 of the Statutes of ANACOM and articles 99 et seq. of the Code of Administrative Procedure. The Draft Regulation was announced through Notice No. 13517/2016, published in the 2nd Series of Diário da República (Official Gazette), of 2 November 2016, as well as on the ANACOM website.
The final report, which analyses the contributions received within the scope of this procedure and justifies the options of ANACOM, is published on this Authority's website.
The requests for information set out in the annexes to this Regulation are based on the need to collect information, notably for the purpose of monitoring the activity of providers, the level of development and use of the services, competition in these markets, the assessment of the implementation of regulatory measures and of the response to requests for information from national and international entities.
The requested indicators were adapted to the new regulatory (for example, new relevant markets), technological (for example, ALL IP networks) and market (for example, convergent offers) realities.
The definitions and concepts used were reviewed in order to increase the degree of reliability and comparability of the collected information. In addition to reflecting the experience acquired and best practice, the new indicators benefitted from the changes introduced following the comments and suggestions made regarding the draft during the regulatory consultation procedure. Among these, reference should be made to the approximation of the definition of bundle to the concept used by the providers, the clarification of the definition of revenues, the adoption of providers' proposals on the reporting of traffic and introduction of clarifications in the definitions of mobile accesses, subscription TV signal distribution, and collection of information by parish, among others.
The new indicators also reflect a reduction in the volume of information requested from the providers due to the use of alternative information sources (for example, sample information), and the elimination of indicators with a reduced relative weight or which had become obsolete. In this context, it is also important to mention the contributions received from the entities that submitted comments during the public consultation. In fact, the suggestions received led to the elimination, replacement or reformulation of indicators whose collection might not be proportional, namely indicators of customers associated to binding periods, indicators of new customers and withdrawals, indicators of accesses at a fixed location associated to M2M/IoT and to certain numbering ranges. In other cases, the frequency of collection was changed (for example, the indicators of non-residential customers with multiple locations and some traffic indicators of non-geographic numbers are now collected annually).
An increase in the efficiency of the information collection process was also promoted through the unification of regular information requests and the creation of a schedule for the collection of these indicators. Following the suggestions received during the public discussion, an information loading procedure will be created using an Excel form, which will enable the time and the resources allocated to this operation to be reduced.
These changes were reflected in a decrease of the complexity, detail and frequency of the information collected, thus resulting in a reduction of the associated costs.
ANACOM considered that the advantages of obtaining the information indispensable to the performance of its mission by using a smaller questionnaire and a more efficient process outweighed the additional costs associated with its implementation.
In addition to the requests for statistical information arising from this Regulation, there will continue to be requests for statistical information on an ad hoc basis and requests for information of another nature.
Thus, under article 9 (2)(a), article 26 (1)(b) and in compliance with the provisions of article 10 of the Statutes of Anacom, approved by Decree-Law No. 39/2015, of 16 March, of article 99 et seq. of the Code of Administrative Procedure, of article 108, of article 109 (1)(b) to (f) and of article 125 (1), all of the ECL, ANACOM approved, by determination of 30 March 2017, the following regulation:
Regulation on provision of statistical information
Article 1
Object and scope
This regulation establishes the manner, level of detail, deadlines and frequency of the submission of statistical information which undertakings providing electronic communication networks and services are required to report to ANACOM on a regular basis, under the terms and for the purposes of article 109 (1)(b) to (f), all of the Electronic Communications Law (Law No. 5/2004, of 10 February, with the wording currently in force).
Article 2
Definitions and abbreviations
For the purposes of this regulation, the definitions and abbreviations laid down in the respective annexes, which are an integral part thereof, as well as the definitions contained in the Electronic Communications Law, shall apply.
Article 3
Deadlines and frequency of the submission of information
1. The entities mentioned in annex 1 of this regulation must submit to ANACOM the questionnaires indicated in the latter, completed with the information corresponding to their activity on the reference dates defined therein, within the deadlines set out in that annex.
2. In those cases where they do not yet have the required information, the undertakings providing electronic communication networks and services must submit to ANACOM estimates of these values, indicating the assumptions used for their calculation, and submit the corresponding definitive information until the end of the quarter following the filing of accounts, in accordance with the applicable commercial registry legislation.
3. In the cases referred to in the previous paragraph and after the period established therein, the information of the year in question, including estimated values, shall be considered by ANACOM as definitive information.
Article 4
Form and level of detail of the information
The undertakings providing electronic communication networks and services must submit the information to ANACOM according to the indicators, definitions and form of reporting established in the questionnaires contained in annex 2 to 6 of this regulation, namely:
a) Annex 2: Quarterly questionnaire on electronic communication networks and services;
b) Annex 3: Quarterly questionnaire on high-speed electronic communication networks at a fixed location;
c) Annex 4: Quarterly questionnaire directed at holders of rights to use numbers of the 761 and 762 ranges;
d) Annex 5: Quarterly questionnaire on fixed broadband accesses;
e) Annex 6: Annual questionnaire.
Article 5
Procedures for submission of information
1. The questionnaires contained in annexes 2 to 6 of this regulation must be submitted to ANACOM by the undertakings providing electronic communication networks and services, duly completed, through the Extranet platform developed for this purpose.
2. ANACOM provides the credentials to access the mentioned Extranet, as well as the associated procedures manual, to the providers of electronic communication networks and services.
3. In those cases in which ANACOM has still not made available an Extranet for the reporting of information or until its adaptation to the form and level of detail resulting from this regulation, ANACOM offers the undertakings providing electronic communication networks and services an electronic version of the questionnaires contained in annexes 2 to 6 of this regulation.
4. In the cases foreseen in the previous paragraph, the undertakings providing electronic communication networks and services must submit to ANACOM the electronic versions of the questionnaires, duly completed, using for this purpose the address dee.stats@anacom.pt.
Article 6
Publication
The statistical information collected within the context of this regulation can be published by ANACOM, pursuant to Article 9 (2)(e) of its Statutes, approved by Decree-Law No. 39/2015, of 16 March.
Article 7
Penalty system
Breaches of the provisions of this regulation are punishable pursuant to article 113 (2)(pp) of the Electronic Communications Law.
Article 8
Transitional provisions
1. The undertakings providing electronic communication networks and services have a period of 180 continuous days, after the entry into force of this regulation, to implement the indicators established in the questionnaires contained in annexes 2 to 6 of this regulation.
2. The undertakings providing electronic communication networks and services must regularly send the information referred to in the previous paragraph as of the calendar quarter following the one in which the period of implementation ends.
3. In those cases in which the undertakings providing electronic communication networks and services initiate their activity after the entry into force of this regulation, the deadline provided for in paragraph 1 shall run from the respective date of the start of activity.
Article 9
Repeal
This regulation replaces the previous requests for information approved by the following determinations of ANACOM, published on this Authority's website at www.anacom.pt:
a) Determination of 3 March 2011 on the new statistical indicators of the electronic communication services at a fixed location and nomadic VOIP services;
b) Determination of 30 July 2010 on the statistical indicators that must be submitted, on a quarterly basis, to this Authority by the fixed network operators and high-speed service providers;
c) Determination of 8 July 2009 relative to the set of statistical indicators to be submitted, on a quarterly basis, to this Authority by the mobile service providers;
d) Determination of 9 November 2006 on the set of statistical indicators to be submitted to ANACOM by the Fixed Telephone Service providers for the purposes of definition of the relevant markets and of assessment of SMP;
e) Determination of 28 September 2006 on the set of statistical elements to be submitted to ANACOM by the providers of Trunking Mobile Services.
Article 10
Effective start date
This regulation shall enter into force on the day following its publication.
See here annexes (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6)https://www.anacom.pt/streaming/annex_regstatisticainformation.pdf?contentId=1415441&field=ATTACHED_FILE
Annex 1 - Entities subject to the obligations of submitting information, questionnaires, reference dates of the information and deadlines for submitting information
Annex 2 - Quarterly questionnaire on electronic communication networks and services
Annex 3 - Quarterly questionnaire on high-speed electronic communication networks at a fixed location
Annex 4 - Quarterly questionnaire directed at holders of rights of use of numbers of the 761 and 762 ranges
Specification of the database to be sent to ANACOM
Annex 5 - Quarterly questionnaire on fixed broadband accesses
Annex 6 - Annual Questionnaire
16 May 2017. – Chair of the Board of Directors, Maria de Fátima Henriques da Silva Barros Bertoldi.
