Morocco’s telecoms regulator, the Agence Nationale de Reglementation de Telecom (ANRT), has published its decision ANRT/DG/No.14 (dated 9 December 2014), which establishes the technical requirements and tariffs for passive access to Maroc Telecom’s (IAM’s) fixed local loop. The new document comprises eight articles and lifts all restrictions on accessing the physical components of the wired local loop, which the incumbent operator has established in order to limit the use of its equipment by competitors. The ANRT gave the former monopoly operator a deadline of 31 December to provide an updated wholesale offer ‘integrating all requests for amendments and improvements requested by the ANRT’ to rival operators Meditel and Inwi.
As previously noted by CommsUpdate, in June 2014 the ANRT published the rules governing local loop unbundling (LLU) in Morocco. Under the new regulations, Maroc Telecom is required to provide colocation for third-party operators’ equipment in its existing cabinets, install multi-operator cabinets for part of their future nodes and establish an active wholesale offer for third-party operators under a virtual unbundled local access (VULA) model. Although the incumbent telco was initially required to provide a technical and tariff wholesale offer for passive access to its fixed local loop by 1 August, it was accused of failing to publish wholesale offers that cover shared cabinet access, full and partial unbundling and bitstream access on several occasions.
