- Office of Electronic Communications

President of UKE responsible in BEREC for roaming, regulatory framework and wireless networks

From 1 January 2019 President of UKE Marcin Cichy holds the position of BEREC Vice-Chair 2019 and, as agreed, monitors progress of the following BEREC working groups (WGs): Roaming, Regulatory Framework and Wireless Network Evolution.

The first result of the Roaming WG will be issuing BEREC Guidelines on intra-EU communications. Starting from 15 May 2019, these services will be regulated under amended Regulation 2015/2120 which introduces new rates for consumers: no more than 19 eurocents per minute of an international voice call in the EU and no more than 6 eurocents per SMS. The Guidelines will define, among others, criteria to be taken into account by NRAs when assessing divergences from these rates. Moreover, the WG monitors on a regular basis the roaming market in EU and will produce an opinion on the functioning of that market for the purposes of the European Commission’s review. 

The Regulatory Framework WG will start work on development of the numbering databases, adaptation of BEREC’s rules of procedure to new provisions and providing support to NRAs in the process of transposition. It will be also involved in developing BEREC guidelines in order to ensure consistent implementation of the European Electronic Communications Code (EECC):

• on the notification template as in Article 12 (4) of the EECC, which is expected to facilitate the undertakings’ operations,
• on common criteria for the assessment of the ability of undertakings other than ECN or ECS to manage numbering resources (and the risk of exhaustion of numbering resources) – Article 93 (2) of EECC,

The Wireless Network Evolution WG is responsible for the project on 5G development in EU countries and will be involved in the peer review forum organised by the Radio Spectrum Policy Group (RSPG) in order to exchange opinions on planned selection procedures. As other groups it will also develop guidelines resulting from EECC, i.e. on how to assess the effectiveness of public warning systems transmitted by different means – Article 110 (2) of EECC. Furthermore, BEREC will finalise after public consultations its common positions on infrastructure sharing. It contains criteria which can be taken into account by NRAs in assessing mobile infrastructure sharing agreements where NRAs have competence to do so.

Monitoring of BEREC working groups by Marcin Cichy is another step in the implementation of UKE’s Strategic lines of actions for 2017-2021 in the field of international policy. Involvement in BEREC at the governance level will increase the NRA’s visibility in the EU and will be a good opportunity to further increase its expert image abroad.