Paris, December 23, 2011.
ARCEP - France's Electronic communications and postal regulatory authority - is about to implement a quarterly campaign for gathering information on the technical and pricing terms governing data conveyance and interconnection. ARCEP is submitting a draft decision for public consultation.
ARCEP's aim in introducing the process of regular information gathering is to deepen its knowledge of these markets. Data conveyance and interconnection agreements are based on partially unwritten rules, which occasionally result in tensions between stakeholders (e.g. Internet service providers, content and application providers, transit providers, content delivery networks). The information requested will, when necessary, help ARCEP perform its duties effectively. Some of these duties were extended, as part of the transposition of the European Directives of 2009 to include providers of public online communication services (hereafter PPOCS): especially as regards dispute resolution.
This information specifically pertains to the technical and pricing terms of data conveyance and interconnection that could have an impact on the French market. It therefore concerns natural persons or legal entities whose activity or business is likely to have a significant impact on end users located in France:
a. operators declared to ARCEP in accordance with French legislative framework (CPCE Article L. 33-1) and, more generally, operators with a public electronic communications network whose installations are located either entirely or partially in France;
b. operators other than those in category a) who have an interconnection relationship with at least one operator belonging to category a);
c. PPOCS established in France;
d. PPOCS not established in France, but who have actively taken steps to have their services or content accessed by French users.
The draft decision can be downloaded from the ARCEP website. Stakeholders are asked for their opinion and are invited to respond to the questions found at the end of the document, by February 17, 2012.
Linked documents
Draft decision on the implementation of a quarterly campaign for gathering information on the technical and pricing terms governing data conveyance and interconnection - Public consultation from 23 December 2011 to 17 February 2012 (pdf - )
Response Template (Annex of the decision) (xls - 45KB) (xls - 
) 