Market Competition
Competition
The ICT Authority aims to create a level playing field in the telecommunications landscape so as to prevent any unfair or anti-competitive practices from licensees and to ultimately serve the best interests of consumers.
Based on the requirements of Section 30 of the ICT Act 2001, there is a need to deploy a new Market Competition Framework (MCF) founded on the principles of ex-ante asymmetric market regulation. In the long term, this transition would involve a gradual move towards light touch regulation whereby the focus would be on the analysis of relevant markets & operators having Significant Market Power (SMP) instead of applying blanket regulation on all licensees. A number of implementation stages would guide the deployment of the MCF, underpinned by stakeholder consultations and culminating with the eventual publication of relevant guidelines thereon.
A significant step towards its implementation has been initiated through the ongoing development of Accounting Separation Requirements (ASR) for licensees. ASRs enable the analysis of audited financial statements of companies that are licensed to supply information & communication services, in order to provide cost & revenue information on a (i) per service category basis, and (ii) per licence category basis, where applicable. Accounting Separation therefore represents a valuable instrument for the effective implementation of market regulation by the Authority within the ICT sector, as part of the roll out of the new competition framework.
An MoU is also in place since 2010 with the Competition Commission of Mauritius in consideration of the overlapping responsibilities of the two institutions when dealing with competition matters.
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