July 1999

Lithuania Master Report

I- General background

Newest history of the Lithuania telecommunications started in 1991 after reestablishment of Lithuania independence. Development of market economy and integration to Europe Union were defined as Lithuania priority. The transition to market economy from the monopoly state with one operator to liberalised market required new laws and regulators. The Ministry of Communications and Informatics prepared State Development of Communications and Informatics Program in 1992-1993. The program laid out state policy in Communications and Informatics sector. The program was confirmed Lithuania Government Decree Nº898, 1993/12/2.

In 1996 the Program was made more exact complied new Lithuania Government Program for 1997-2000 and approved by Lithuania Seimas (Parliament). This program is framework for development of Communications and Informatics.

1. General telecom policy

Lithuania Telekomas (telecom) as state enterprise was established in 1992 after separation from Soviet Union telecommunications system. Since that date the regulatory and operational functions were separated. The Ministry of Communications and Informatics fulfills regulatory functions. In 1997 state enterprise Telekomas was transformed to joint stock venture. The new phase of Lithuania Telekomas started in July 1998 after privatisation. 60% of total Telekomas shares were sold to the Consortium Amber Teleholding equally owned by Telia (Sweden) and Sonera (Finland), Lithuania Government owns 35% of the shares and 5% are foreseen for Telekomas employees.

Lithuania seeks integration to the European Union and priorities in telecommunication area are:

• full liberalisation of telecommunication market;
• harmonisation and adaptation of legal and regulatory basis in compliance with EU law system.

2. Institutional structures in charge of the regulatory issues

2.1 Department of Information and Informatics

Lithuania has reorganised its Ministry of Communication and Informatics, splitting it up into a Department of Information and Informatics (DII), that operates under Ministry of Public Administration reforms and Local Authorities, and a Department of Telecommunications that is part of the Ministry of Transport. DII is responsible for development of Informatics and the Information Society in Lithuania. The main mission of the Department is to create an effective co-ordination network collecting information about IT projects that are of importantly for the State, creating effective development strategies and implementing them through various programs. More information can be obtained in http://www.iid.lt

2.2 National regulatory Authority

The basic law governing the telecommunications in Lithuania is the Law on Telecommunications ( http://www.lrs.lt ) entered into force on 1 August 1998. The law required establishment of Regulatory Agency (RA). RA is independent from operators and from Ministries. The head of state Lithuania President appoints Director/Members of RA for 5-year period. The creation of RA is foreseen for the 2nd half of 1999. Department of Communications under Ministry of Transport ( http://www.transp.lt ) is temporarily authorised by Government Decree to fulfil RA function prescribed in the Law until the RA will be established.

2.3 State Radio Administration Authority

State Radio Frequency Service (SRFS) is the executive part of the Radio Administration of Lithuania. It has the status of independent regulatory enterprise, founded and supervised by the Ministry of Transport. SRFS does not receive any governmental financing, but recovers its expenses from the fees for all kinds of radio station licenses. The wide range of SRFS responsibilities includes such as the direct involvement at all levels of sophisticated radio spectrum management; spectrum monitoring; telecom equipment testing and type approval; control over the importation, installation and operation of radio stations, and many others aspects relevant with this sector. According the Law on Telecommunication, telecommunications activities for which limited resources - radio frequencies and telephone numbers - are licensable. The Government must approve the list of the telecommunications activities and the conditions attached to the licensing. A license to engage in telecommunications activity must be awarded by tender in a manner prescribed by the Government.

More detail about SRFS service, procedures of licensing and testing, fees and registration of wireless equipment can be obtained at http://www.radio.lt .

2.4 State Competition and Consumer Protection office

Seimas adopted the Law on Competition ( http://www.lrs.lt ) in 1999. The law is compatible with main competition principles that are applied in EU member states and this would be considered as one of the prerogatives favouring integration into the common European market. The main functions of the State Competition and Consumer Protection office is monitoring of enforcement of the Law on Competitions for abuse of a dominant position, agreement restricting or hindering competition, competition restricting actions, concentration of market structures and consumer protection.

2.5 Permanent Information Society Commission under Government

The Permanent Information Society Commission as top-level Advisory body was established by Government Decree N. 635 in 1998/05/25. The main functions of the Commission are investigation of Information Society development problems and prepare proposals for its solutions. The Commission members are representatives of President Office, Government, Seimas (Parliament), experts and key persons working in Information Society.

2.6 Public telecommunication operators

The main public telecommunication operator in Lithuania is Lithuania Telekomas with monopoly until 2002/12/31 for fixed lines local and domestic long distance services. The owners of Telekomas are Amber Teleholding (Sweden and Finland) with 60% shares, Lithuania Government - 35% and employees - 5% shares. Heavy investments (more 125 MEURO per year) are planed for modernisation of Telekomas infrastructure and services.

Other operators working in mobile communications area are:

• Omnitel - private company. Lithuania and USA joint venture leader in mobile communications and one of the main Internet service providers ( http://www.omnitel.lt ),
• Comliet - private company. Lithuania, Luxembourg and Denmark joint venture ( http://www.comliet.lt ),
• Bite GSM - private company. Lithuania and Denmark joint venture ( http://www.bite.lt ).

Lithuania Telekomas is dominating currently in mobile communications as owner of 55% of Omnitel shares, Comliet 41% and 28,45%of Bite GSM. According Law on Competition Lithuania Telekomas must sell the shares of Comliet and Bite GSM in a short time period.

3. International relationships

Lithuania is member of:

• the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) since 1991;
• the International Post Union (UPU) since 1992;
• Conference of Postal and Telecommunication Administration (CEPT) since 1992;
• Europe Satellite Communications Union (EUTELSAT) since 1992.

Lithuania international collaboration in the development of Information Technologies is focusing on:

• development of joint Baltic countries projects,
• collaboration with Europe Union structures and participation in EU programs,
• collaboration with Nordic countries.

Main projects and actions under development in the framework of international collaboration:

• fast data transfer backbone Vilnius - Riga - Tallinn with video conferencing possibility and servers,
• to develop uniform Baltic cross-border information infrastructure including police, transport control and others,
• to prepare joint proposals to participate EU programs (PHARE),
• to participate Europe Parliament Information system project "ERRI-WATCH, connect to Europe Public Administration network in co-ordination with joint Baltic projects,
• to participate in development of IT standards, unification, certification and legal basis.

More information on this subject can be obtained in the site: http://www.iid.lt/vripp/ .

4. Regulatory framework

4.1 Historical overview

First regulations in telecommunication area started after regaining of independence in 1990 year. The former Ministry of Communications and Informatics (until 1998) provided government regulations and co-ordination of development of telecommunications as state-significant infrastructure. The Law on Telecommunications currently is the regulatory framework for telecommunications area.

4.2 Present general legislation

The Law on Telecommunications regulates relations between the telecommunications operators and the users of their services. The management and the use and control of radio communication, as well as import, manufacturing, use and maintenance of equipment radiating electromagnetic waves are also regulated by this Law, ensuring an effective use of radio frequencies, and set forth conditions for promoting competition in the telecommunications sector.

This Law did not regulate licensing activities of radio and television program broadcasters. Exception to this is the requirement to submit to the Radio and Television Commission the basic terms and conditions of the activity of co-ordinated radio and television stations frequencies (channels) and of telecommunications networks intended for broadcasting radio and television programs (Article 1. Purpose and Application of the Law).

4.3 Key legislative measures

4.4 Issues

4.4.1 Liberalisation

4.4.2 Licensing

In the Law on Telecommunications ( http://www.lrs.lt ), the Articles N.10 describes general principles of licensing of telecommunications activities and licenses to radio and TV broadcasters and providers of transmission services. Only such telecommunications activities for which limited resources - radio frequencies and telephone numbers are available shall be licensable.

4.4.3 Universal Services

.The Law on Telecommunications declares a list of universal services, rules for providing them and the procedure of compensation the universal services working at a loss shall be approved by the Government. Universal services must be supplied by all operators authorised to provide these telecommunications services.

4.4.4 Tariffs policy

Article N. 11 of the Law on Telecommunications describes regulation of prices for Telecommunication services. The prices for services established by all the providers shall be monitored by the state Agency of Competition and Consumer Rights. The maximum price for a telecommunication service may be specified in the licenses and authorisation issued to all providers of this service.

4.4.5 Quality of Service

The quality of Telecommunications services is monitored by the state Agency of Competition and Consumer Rights within the limits of its competence.

4.4.6 Interconnection of Telecommunication services

Article N. 12 of the Law on Telecommunications declared operators of public communications networks must comply with the requests of other licensed telecommunications operators to interconnect public and internal telecommunications network. Telecommunications networks must be interconnected not later than within 3 months after the day of receiving the request. In other cases Communication Regulatory Authority shall consider within two months and shall make a decision.

5. Freedom and protection

5.1 Access to information networks

Access to the information networks regulates:

• The Law on State Registers, adopted on 13 August 1996, regulates the creation and functioning of the system of registers of the integral state information system. This Law regulates collection and storage of data, user rights and duties for presentation of information. Citizens have right to know about personal information stored in state information system (registers) and to check it.
• The Law on Mass Media regulates provision of information to public.

5.2 Copyright and intellectual property rights

The Law on the Legal Protection of Computer Programs and Databases, adopted on 30 January 1996, creates the legal basis enabling all the authors and co-authors of a program or a database to protect copyright of their production.

5.3 Privacy, data protection, consumer protection

The Law on Legal Protection of Personal Data, adopted 11^th of June 1996, regulates legal protection of personal data stored in information systems. On 12 March 1998 Law N. VIII-662, partly amending and supplementing the Law on Legal Protection of Personal Data, was adopted. A new wording of the said law has been prepared and harmonised with the EU Directives. This is foreseen to be adopted by the year 2000.

5.4 Electronic protection, legal protection and security

On 1 June 1998 draft Law on the Electronic Document (electronic signature) was drawn up. On 6 June 1998 it was submitted to the Seimas of the Republic of Lithuania for consideration. The Law shall legalise the electronic document and electronic mail, as well as create preconditions for the use of electronic documents that have a legal force.

5.5 Freedom of expression and information

Legal act on distribution of illegal information containing harmful contents in computer network of public use is planned be adopted in 2000.

6. Information Society Policy

6.1 Umbrella Policies

The main policies are the adoption of Council Decision 98/253/EC on a long-term EU program stimulating the creation of the Information Society in Europe, as well as provision of the EC Decision 96/339/EC in Lithuania. The National program of creating the Information Society in being drowned up which is planed to be adopted in the year 2000.

The state policy and objectives of Information Society are submitted in State Program of Developing Communications and Informatics ( http://www.iid.lt/document.htm ).

6.2 IS Application Areas

6.2.1 Government

One of the constituent parts of creating the Information Society is the implementation and development of the administration information system of the Government of the Republic of Lithuania. With this end the draft of the document entitled "The Procedure (regulation) for Drawing up, Registering and Sending Documents by Modules of the Administration Information System of the Government of the Republic of Lithuania" was issued. The procedure for preparing documents of the state power and governing institutions and sending them to the Government’s Office were drawn up on 25 September 1998.

Seeking to create the integral system of the state records, classificatory and registers which is necessary to form a uniform state information system; the Government of the Republic of Lithuania on 21 July 1997 adopted the following Resolutions:

• Resolution No. 726 of the Government of the Republic of Lithuania "On Using Data of the State Registers and Confirming the Regulations of the List of the State Registers";
• Resolution No. 792 of the Government of the Republic of Lithuania "Concerning Partial Amendment to Resolution No. 1418 of the Government of the Republic of Lithuania "On Establishing, Designing, Reorganising and Using the State Registers".

The procedure for the exchange of information between the state registers and state information systems were approved by Order N. 148 of the Minister of the former Ministry of Communications and Informatics on 11 November 1997. This Order approved also the provision and use of the data as well as the methodological documents of preparing projects of State registers, as well as the draft law on Land Cadastre.

On 24 March 1998 the Minister of the former Ministry of Communications and Informatics signed Order N. 48 "On Confirming Methodological Documents of Creating Information Systems". Two other Resolutions in this field - Resolution N. 448 "On Confirming the Regulations of the State Registers" and Resolution N. 464 "On Introduction of International Classificators into the Republic of Lithuania" - were adopted by the Government of the Republic of Lithuania on 14 April 1998 and 16 April 1998, respectively.

The Minister of Administration Reforms and Local Authorities signed the Order N. 7 "Concerning the Procedure for Legalising the State and Municipal Information Systems" on 25 January 1999.

6.2.2 Education

The development of distance education in Lithuania, under support of the State Science and Studies Fund and State investments, is co-ordinated by Kaunas University of Technology, KTU ( http://www.ktu.lt ). The projects aims:

• to establish the Central teaching studio at KTU, to establish 4 distance regional centres - classes in Kaunas, Vilnius, Klaipeda, Siauliai, Panevezys,
• to carrying out the methodical research of the study organisation and courses preparation in the synchronous (real-time-based) distance education system, investigating a possibility to expand the distance education courses and videoconferences qualities by new teaching methods.

6.2.3 OSF programs

The Open Society Fund - Lithuania (OSFL), http://www.osf.lt , is one of the network of over the thirty foundations established since 1985 in Central, Eastern Europe and Asia by George Soros. During the seven years of its existence OSFL support for different projects has amounted to over 90 million litas (22 MEURO), with an emphasis on education, science, civil society, culture, communications and publishing.

Medical INTERNET - promotion of and support for the medical information network, development of national data bases: provision of conditions for hospitals, medical libraries and other medical establishments to get access to the Internet, and participate in distance learning and medical education projects.

INTERNET Programme - provision of Internet services to education and science institutions, non-governmental organisations and individuals: support to projects on providing interesting and useful materials on Internet, and organising of training.

II. On - going developments

The establishment of Communication Regulatory Agency is planned in 2-nd half year 1999. Now the Department of Communications under Ministry of Transport temporarily fulfils the function prescribed in the Law on Telecommunication.

Lithuania Telekomas dominates in mobile communications sectors, has shares in all three mobile communications companies - Omnitel - 55%, Comliet - 41%, Bite GSM - 28,4%. The State Competition and Consumer Protection office required near this operator to sell their shares in Comliet and Bite GSM in a short time.

The newest history of the Lithuania telecommunications started in 1991 after reestablishment of Lithuania independence. Development of market economy and integration to Europe Union were defined as Lithuania priority. The transition to market economy from the Monopoly State with one operator to liberalized market required new laws and regulators. The Ministry of Communications and Informatics prepared the State Development of Communications and Informatics program in 1992-1993. The program laid out the state policy in Communications and Informatics sector. The program was confirmed by the Lithuania Government Decree Nº 898, 1993/12/2.

In 1996 the Program was made more exact complied with the new Lithuania Government Program for 1997-2000 and approved by Lithuania Seimas (Parliament). This program is the development framework for Communications and Informatics.