July 2000

Latvia Update Memo

The following report outlines new developments in the past three months and the state of on-going developments.

The Governmental changes in the period between April 1st to June 30th, suspended all planned developments concerning the legislation process and the negotiation process with strategic investor of Dominant operator.

"THE DECLARATION ON THE INTENDED ACTIVITIES OF THE CABINET OF MINISTERS’ (declaration from the new Cabinet of Ministers) points out the following future activities in the field of telecommunications and information technologies.

In the market liberalisation area:

• achieve that the period of monopoly of Lattelekom will be shortened and will only be valid until the year 2003, and ensure that real competition emerges in the sector of telecommunications;

In the mobile market area:

• immediately liberalise wireless communications market by setting clear criteria for issuing licenses and starting issuing licenses for new operators;

In the broadcasting services area:

• ensure quality detection of the public television and radio programmes in the whole country.

In the ISP area:

• promote the development of the Internet in Latvia, ensure fair competition among the Internet service providers.

In compliance with the last activity the Minister of Transport is carrying out a Direction to establish a Working Group for drafting the following documents:

• create transparent and fair competition rules between ISP;
• develop the Concept of Internet Market supervision Rules from the Government site.

The major stimulating factor for the Development processes in Alternative Networks sector is reduction of exclusive rights of the dominant operator Lattekom. The current exclusive rights are running until 2003. The exclusivity is the major reason behind that no further development in Alternative Networks sector is taking place in Latvia.

The "Latvian Mobile Telephone" should be mentioned as a significant actor. The company is offering WAP services and these services are now available for users of WAP mobile sets in Latvia.