Regulation 21 Conditions of access and use and essential requirements
The Director shall ensure that procedures are in place to address situations where:
public operators or systemless service providers; or
at least public operators or systemless service providers providing voice telephony services and which are operators having significant market power;
take measures such as the interruption, termination, significant variation or reduction in the availability of services provided at least to organisations running telecommunication systems or providing telecommunications services or both.
The parties shall abide by a decision, taken in accordance with such procedures, without prejudice to their right to apply to a court, save insofar as the parties concerned have entered into an agreement which provides otherwise for the resolution of disputes between them.
The procedures referred to in paragraph (1) above shall:
be transparent, and shall give both parties to a dispute an opportunity to state their case;
provide for a reasoned decision to be notified to the parties by the Director within one week of its adoption.
The Director may make a direction appointing a third party to assist in the resolution of, or to resolve, the dispute, and such a direction shall include provisions as to the payment of such a person’s reasonable costs and expenses and the procedures to be adopted by that person.
A summary of the procedures referred to in paragraph (1) above shall be published in accordance with regulations 17 and 18 above.
The Secretary of State may by notice served on public operators or systemless service providers impose restrictions on the access to or the use of fixed public telephone systems or fixed publicly available telephone services or both on the basis of the essential requirements set out in paragraphs (i) to (v) below. The notice shall be published and shall identify which of the essential requirements set out in paragraphs (i) to (v) below is the basis of the restrictions:
security of network operations;
maintenance of network integrity;
interoperability of services;
protection of data; or
effective use of the frequency spectrum;
In imposing any such restriction the Secretary of State shall ensure that:
any restriction is based on objective criteria identified in advance;
any restriction within paragraph (a)(ii) above is kept to the minimum necessary to provide for normal operation of the network; and
any restriction within paragraph (a)(iv) above is imposed only in accordance with relevant data protection legislation.
The Secretary of State shall publish a notice in the London, Edinburgh and Belfast Gazettes referring to the manner in which the notice referred to in paragraph (a) above is published.
The Secretary of State may take any measures which are necessary in order to ensure that:
the availability of fixed public telephone systems or fixed publicly available telephone services or both is maintained in the event of catastrophic network breakdown or in cases of force majeure, such as extreme weather, earthquake, flood, lightning or fire; and
the integrity of the fixed public telephone network is maintained.
In exercising their functions under Part II and sections 47 to 49 of the Act, the Secretary of State and the Director shall, without prejudice to any notice issued by the Secretary of State in accordance with paragraph (6)(a) above, ensure that:
in the event of the circumstances referred to in paragraph (7)(a) above public telecommunications operators take all the necessary steps:
to ensure that insofar as is practicable in all the circumstances the availability of fixed public telephone systems is maintained; and
to maintain insofar as is practicable the highest level of services to meet any priorities specified by the Secretary of State and the Director;
restrictions by public operators on access to and use of fixed public telephone systems on the grounds of security of networks are proportionate, non-discriminatory and are based on objective criteria identified in advance;
restrictions by public operators on access to and use of fixed public telephone systems on the grounds of maintenance of network integrity, in order to protect, inter alia, network equipment, software or stored data, are non-discriminatory, kept to the minimum necessary to provide for the normal operation of the network and based on objective criteria identified in advance;
conditions on access to and use of fixed public telephone systems or fixed publicly available telephone services or both based on the grounds of protection of data may be imposed by public operators only in accordance with relevant data protection legislation;
public telecommunications operators take all necessary steps insofar as is practicable in all the circumstances to ensure that the integrity of the fixed public telephone network is maintained; and
public operators do not impose further restrictions on the grounds of interoperability of services on terminal equipment operating in accordance with the Terminal Equipment Regulations.
In exercising her powers under the Wireless Telegraphy Acts 1949f1 and 1998f2, the Secretary of State shall ensure that public operators which use the frequency spectrum do so effectively and avoid harmful interference between radio-based systems which could restrict or limit access to or use of fixed public telephone systems and fixed publicly available telephone services.
Systemless service providers may impose conditions on access to and use of fixed public telephone systems or fixed publicly available telephone services or both based on the grounds of protection of data only in accordance with relevant data protection legislation.
Systemless service providers shall not impose any restrictions on the use of terminal equipment operating in accordance with the Terminal Equipment Regulations on the grounds of interoperability of services.
Annotations
Footnotes
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- f2