MICA has issued a public consultation on the proposed amendments to the Telecommunications Act (TA) on 27 August 2010, considering the feedback that was received from this consultation. In its proposal, MICA is suggesting that the Minister be provided with the powers to impose structural or operational separation on a telecommunications licensee subject to certain conditions being met. If MICA’s proposal is adopted, the Minister would then be able to intervene in a timely basis to ensure effective open access to new economic bottlenecks that may form in other parts of the telecom service value chain. MICA’s public consultation is available here.
In December 2007, the Government decided to impose Structural and Operational separation requirements on Singapore's Next Generation National Broadband Network (Next Gen NBN) in order to achieve Effective Open Access to facilitate competition in the downstream market. Annex A outlines the key highlights of the separation requirements imposed on the Next Gen NBN NetCo and Next Gen NBN OpCo.
IDA is now considering whether Structural and Operation separation requirements should be included in the regulatory toolkit for regulating other players in the telecommunications industry, in addition to existing regulatory measures under the Telecom Competition Code, and is seeking the views and comments from the industry and members of the public to have a better understanding of the issues at hand.
All views and comments should be submitted in writing and in both hard and soft copies (Microsoft Word Format), and should reach IDA by
12 noon, 13 June 2008. Respondents are required to include their personal or company particulars, correspondence address, contact number and email address in their submissions. IDA will make all or parts of any submissions made in response to this Consultation Paper public and disclose the identity of the source. Any part of the submission which is considered commercially sensitive must be clearly marked and placed as an annex to the comments submitted. IDA will take this into account in its review. All comments should be addressed to:
Mr. Andrew Haire
Deputy Director General (Telecoms)
Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore
8 Temasek Boulevard
#14-00 Suntec Tower Three
Singapore 038988
Fax: (65) 6211 2116
AND
Please submit your soft copies via email to IDA_Consultation@ida.gov.sg.
