The quality of service of leased lines is an issue which operators and alternative service providers have raised repeatedly and at various levels. In their response to the draft decision (DD) on the "market analysis", OSP raised specific questions concerning:
(a) The incompatibility between supply times and fault repair times defined in LLRO and those required by public tenders, having been presented the example of the Public Purchasing Framework Agreement for the provision of fixed data communication services1, which in the view of OSP leads to market distortions2;
(b) Absence of SLA3 for 100% of cases for all parameters of quality of service (PQS) - service supply, repair and availability - which is detrimental to the relation of wholesale operators with their business clients;
(c) Supply and restore times, which are not adjusted to the market reality and represent "the main constrain to the success of the offer" 4;
(d) The indexation of the payment of compensation to the sending of forecast plans by operators.
These issues were covered already in the "market analysis", having been stated at the time that:
(a) Many LLRO beneficiaries have already proposed to ICP-ANACOM that the levels of compensation provided for in this offer should be strengthened, considering them insufficient as a deterrent of non-compliance by PTC;
(b) In particular, compensation for failures to comply with fault repair times, which is equivalent to 3% of the monthly price of the leased line in question, regardless of the seriousness of the non-compliance, corresponding in practise to a refund of less than one day of monthly charge, constitutes a clearly insufficient incentive for PTC to fully comply with the objectives of quality of service in terms of fault repair;
(c) Current restrictions applicable to the payment of compensation for non-compliance with the established objectives would be assessed5;
(d) It is essential to ensure that the supply times and fault repair times applied contractually to the wholesale provision of leased lines do not prevent operators from providing their customers with supply and fault repair times which are in line with those of the companies of Grupo PT (operating at retail level). In this respect it must be highlighted that one of the beneficiaries of LLRO informed ICP-ANACOM that it had urged PTC to submit a proposal for more demanding levels of service than those defined in the reference offer, to which PTC responded imposing proposal-submission conditions which the operator deemed to be unacceptable.
In this context, an analysis of levels achieved by PTC in 2010 and in the first half of 2011, as regards leased line supply, fault repair and degree of availability6, shown in detail in Appendix 1, led to the conclusion that:
Supply time
(a) PTC generally complied with leased line supply times during 2010, providing lines within a significantly shorter period than the objective, and there are few situations of non-compliance towards OSP (for the most part, failures to comply concern 64 Kbps lines).
(b) In 2011 (first half) the situation deteriorated as cases of non-compliance related to the supply of lines to OSP increased substantially, affecting in many cases 2 Mbps lines.
(c) There was one situation, which may be specific, in which 155 Mbps lines were supplied to companies of the Grupo PT within one day, the objective being 59 days7.
It may be inferred from these facts that:
- Notwithstanding the registered failures to comply, generally there is room for reducing supply times, not least because in certain situations the Grupo PT is able to supply lines to its own companies within a very short time;
- Additional incentives for PTC to comply with defined supply times objectives may be required, thus ICP - ANACOM will keep a close eye on the subject;
- It is relevant to analyse whether higher performance levels than those established currently in LLRO (Premium or not) may be required, in order to effectively meet requests for shorter supply times or situations where this shortening may be easily implemented such as, for example, mere increases of capacity/speed in pre-existing lines/routes.
Repair time
(d) Having the analysis focused only on "Wide Line Network" contracts, where the set of accesses is significant, it is possible to observe a large number of failures to comply with fault repair times, regardless of the type of line or OSP (some of which with significant divergences).
It may thus be concluded that, either repair times that have been set are not realistic, or incentives (compensation) for compliance on the part of PTC are not strong enough.
Bearing in mind that PTC itself defined fault repair times, which were not changed or restricted by ICP - ANACOM, and that PTC could have adjusted at any time the resources required to meet shorter periods, it must be concluded that the second option (the level of compensation not being effectively discouraging) is more likely.
As such, this analysis will not focus on the reduction of repair time objectives as such, without prejudice to the possibility of imposing a Premium level, to be analysed in section 2.4.
Degree of availability
(e) Restricting once more the analysis to "Wide Line Network" contracts, it is possible to observe a very low number of failures to comply with the degree of availability when compared to fault repair times, however there are some situations of non compliance as far as submarine cable access lines are concerned (backhaul).
This leads to the conclusion that backhaul lines require a specific intervention, given their specificity.
Taking into account the above conclusions, each of the indicators of quality of service are analysed below in greater detail.
1 Vide Agência Nacional de Compras Públicas: Concursos concluídoshttp://www.ancp.gov.pt/PT/ComprasPublicas/AcordosQuadro/Pages/Concursos_concluidos.aspx.
2 Given that, according to Optimus, ''the Grupo PT responds to calls for tenders with supply and fault repair times that are not guaranteed to operators via regulated offers.''
3 Service Level Agreement - a contract that establishes the conditions and procedures concerning the quality of service of the offer.
4 According to Optimus, as far as the supply time is concerned, there have been no changes since 2006, and parameters are substantially different from those recommended by EC in its Recommendation of 21.02.2005. The company stresses further that supply times do not include maximum values, which is deemed to be ''inacceptable given the characteristics of retail customers that use this type of offer''.
5 According to Annex 6 of RCAO, ''In order to ensure a correct planning and an optimization of PTC’ resources required for the evolution of RCAO, the OSP must provide PTC, by 30 June every year, with a [quarterly] forecast plan of line needs for the subsequent year (...) which must be reviewed every three months in the course of [that] year N+1'' and ''In case the required capacity exceeds forecasts made by the OSP, PTC must endeavour to guarantee the provision of the excess over the forecast. In this case, supply times shall be negotiated on a case-by-case basis.'' RCAO provides also that PTC must settle payments related to compensation for non-compliance with time-limits no later than one month after reception of a notification from the alternative operator, which must be submitted within at the most three months after occurrences have taken place.
6 On the basis of data sent on a quarterly basis by that company.
7 Less than 10 setups were registered for the first half of the year. Another situation occurred (outside Grupo PT), where the supply time was three days.
- 2.1.1. Supply time https://www.anacom.pt/render.jsp?categoryId=346456
- 2.1.2. Repair time https://www.anacom.pt/render.jsp?categoryId=346457
- 2.1.3. Degree of availability https://www.anacom.pt/render.jsp?categoryId=346461
