TELECOMMUNICATION ORDER 1 of 2004

No. ICTA/NUM/TO/01/2004 06 February 2004

TELECOMMUNICATION ORDER 1 of 2004

The Information & Communication Technologies Authority, hereinafter referred to as the Authority, in the exercise of the powers conferred upon it under the Information and Communication Technologies Act 2001, hereby makes the following determination in respect of the method for Carrier Selection of International Long Distance (ILD) operators for the purpose of making international telecommunication calls from Mauritius.

1. Short title, extent, and commencement:

This Order shall be called “The Telecommunication Order (1 of 2004)” and shall come into force with immediate effect.

2. Taking into consideration that:

i. The ICT Authority had published a consultation document on the National Numbering Plan on 31^st July 2003 and that, among others, this document proposed Carrier Selection strategies;

ii. Comments on the paper were invited from the public until 15 September 2003.

iii. Comments were received on the consultation paper and these were presented and analysed during an open house session organized by the ICT Authority on 29^th October 2003.

iv. A working committee, consisting of the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of IT & Telecommunications (MITT), the Telecommunications Adviser to the MITT (from the Commonwealth Secretariat Consultant), representatives from Mauritius Telecom Ltd, Emtel Ltd, Cellplus Ltd., ACT alliance, ACIM, ICT Advisory Council, and the ICT Authority was set up on the 17th November 2003 to identify key issues of the Numbering Plan and make recommendations on their implementation.

v. The recommendations of the working committee have been approved by the Government on 16 January 2004.

3. The Authority now prescribes that:

i. The implementation of the proposed numbering plan shall be carried out in a phased manner.

ii. Call-by-call selection shall be implemented by all access providers (public fixed and mobile operators) not later than 1^st March 2004.

iii. A parallel running until 30 June 2004 between the current international access method (i.e. using ‘00’) and the Call-by-call carrier selection system for international calls shall be allowed in the following manner:

a. the ‘00’ or ‘+’ symbol (used in mobile telephony) shall direct a call towards a default carrier defined by the access provider;

b. the ILD operators shall be accessed by means of a carrier prefix consisting of a Carrier Access Code of one digit long and a Carrier Identification Code of two digits long;

c. the dialling format shall be 0X0 + Country Code + desired international E.164 number; where ‘X’ stands for any digit between 2 and 9 inclusive.

iv. At the end of the parallel running period (from 1^st July 2004 onwards)

a. no access provider shall be allowed to define a default carrier that is to be accessed by ‘00’;

b. Public Land Mobile Network (PLMN) operators shall continue to accept international numbers dialled with the preceding “+” sign for International Direct Dialling (IDD) and such calls shall be routed to the carrier provider defined by the PLMN operator.

v. ‘00’ shall be used for International Direct Dialling (IDD) from payphones only and calls shall be routed to the licensed ILD operator defined by the duly licensed payphone service provider.

vi. At the end of the parallel running period (from 1^st July 2004 onwards), and until such time carrier pre-selection is implemented, call-by-call selection shall be the only carrier selection method to be used for International calls.

4. The carrier selection code for the ILD operators duly licensed as of date is as follows:

ILD Operator	Carrier identification including carrier access
Mauritius Telecom (MT) Ltd	020
Emtel Ltd	030
Data Communication Ltd (DCL)	040
Hotlink Ltd	050
Mahanagar Telephone Mauritius Ltd (MTML)	060
CityCall ltd	070

BY ORDER

N. PARAMESWARAN

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

To: Mauritius Telecom Ltd

Emtel Ltd

Data Communications Ltd

Hot Link Ltd

Mahanagar Telephone Mauritius Ltd

City Call Ltd

Cellplus Ltd

1) A telecommunications numbering plan means a plan that specifies the format and structure of the numbers used within that plan for the purpose of telecommunication. It typically consists of decimal digits segmented into groups in order to identify specific elements used for identification, routing and charging capabilities.

2) A telecommunications numbering plan should provide for enough capacity for the intended lifetime of the plan, which is usually a minimum of 20 years to ensure stability.

3) E.164 is an international standard, developed by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), which defines international telecommunication numbering structure. According to this standard the structure of a telephone number is of the format described hereunder:

4) Carrier Selection is the mechanism that allows customers to choose among carrier network providers to carry their international telecommunication calls essentially, but not exclusively, by dialling the appropriate carrier identification code before dialling the international number.

5) A Carrier means a licenced International Long Distance (ILD) operator who operates a network to offer International Long Distance services to customers who are connected to the network through access providers. As of February 2004, licenced ILD operators in Mauritius are: Mauritius Telecom Ltd, Emtel ltd, DCL, Hotlink ltd, Mahanagar Telephone Mauritius Ltd, CityCall Ltd.

6) Default carrier means the international carrier that is automatically selected to route an international call when the ‘00’ access code is used, and where the user has not expressly selected any carrier. The choice of the default carrier is made by the access provider.

7) Pre-selected carrier means the international carrier that is automatically selected to route an international call when the ‘00’ access code, rather than the call by call selection is used, and where the user has before hand expressly chosen a carrier as the pre-selected carrier to route all his international call upon the use of ‘00’. The choice of the pre-selected carrier should be communicated by the users to the access provider.

8) Pre-selection means using the pre-selected carrier method to make international calls.

9) Access provider means a licenced Public Switched (fixed) Telephone Network (PSTN), or Public Land Mobile Network (PLMN) provider. As of February 2004, the licenced access providers in Mauritius are: Mauritius Telecom Ltd (PSTN), Mahanagar Telephone Mauritius Ltd (PSTN and PLMN), Emtel Ltd (PLMN), Cellplus Ltd (PLMN).

10) Call-by-call selection is a carrier network selection mechanism for the purpose of making an international call. The consumer, who may use either a fixed phone or a mobile phone, has the possibility of selecting the carrier of his choice by dialling a specific code to select that carrier. In this method of selection, for every international call made by the consumer a different carrier, or the same one, may be selected at will.

0X0 (Carrier Prefix) + 61 (Country Code for Australia) + 93432128 (Destination Number)

If Emtel is used as the carrier then the number to be dialed is: 030 61 93432128

If Hotlink is used as the carrier then the number to be dialed is: 050 61 93432128

If CityCall is used as the carrier then the number to be dialed is: 070 61 93432128

11) Parallel running means a period of time over which both the current and the new methods of accessing the long distance carrier for the purpose of making international calls are allowed. During the parallel running (which shall be up to 30 June 2004), international calls may be made using either the ‘00’ access code (to select Mauritius Telecom as the default carrier), or the call by call selection. After the parallel running (from 1^st July 2004 onwards), ‘00’ access is not allowed as explained in the order.