Update November 2000: Albania

1. Introduction

During this quarter, the main focus has been on investments in telecommunications field.

2. National/local strategies of the Information Society and its action plans

2.1. Investment in telecommunications field

Albtelecom has mainly focused on improving the necessary infrastructure of telecommunications, through several investments in this field. To provide the necessary telephone central equipment, for extending the subscribers in Albania, Albtelecom signed a cooperation contract with Siemens Company in Munich, Germany.

As a result of such investments, new telephone centrals (over 50000 lines) were installed in Tirana, Saranda, Delvina, Pogradeci, Durresi. So, the new telephone central of 33 000 lines was inaugurated in Tirana in 12 July 2000; the new central of 12 000 lines in Saranda and Delvina in 9 September 2000, and the new central of 5000 lines in Pogradeci in September 18, 2000.

Since July 1, Albtelecom has been providing two additional services:

• Subscriber can change the secret telephone code at their home or office. It will no longer be necessary for subscribers to make changes at the respective telecomm office or to ask somebody to do this for them.
• The subscribers in Tirana will be able to know by themselves how many impulses they used before they receive the receipts from Albtelecom.

1000 ISDN lines are ready for service now. They are installed in Tirana, and will be very soon extended to other districts. 128 ISDN lines have been planned to be installed in Saranda and 128 others have been planned to be installed in Pogradeci. For the first time, Albania is going to use ISDN lines. These lines will facilitate data communication and accelerate the data transmission, with a speed of 64KB/sec.

On 30 September 2000, Albtelecom has accomplished the emergency project for setting the conventional lines between communes. 4 lines per each centre of 120 communes ((34% of the communes in Albania) have been installed. This development is very important, because several villages could not have telephone access for several years.

2.2 Alb telecom got the license as a National ISP.

The installation of Back Bone Internet network has been completed in July 2000. At present, Alb telecom is ready to operate as a national ISP, as well as Back Bone operator. Albtelecom is still negotiating with the local ISP to provide them with the Back Bone service.

2.3 AMC

The consortium Telenor Cosmote won the open tender on May 15, 2000, buying 85% of shares of the AMC Company with a value of 85 million USD. All the privatisation procedures were completed by July 30, 2000 with the contract assignment

2.4 Licensing of the second mobile operator in Albania

The Telecommunications Regulatory Entity (TRE) has announced its intent to limit mobile communications to only two parallel services. During 2000, it is expected that there will be an open international tender for a second mobile operator in Albania.

In August, the Ministry of Public Economy and Privatization launched the tender for the second mobile operator in Albania. In September all the procedures for application for the second mobile operator in Albania were published online in Internet.

The Ministry of Public Economy and Privatization and the Telecommunication Regulatory entity are engaged with all the procedures of an open tender on licensing the second mobile communication operator as well as presenting them on the Internet. The ARUP Company (www.arup.com) is the consultant company that is assisting the TRE and MEPP in this process.

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) is supporting TRE in preparing the necessary documentation for conducting the international tender.