Key Benefits:
The Electronic Communications and Postal Regulatory Authority,
In view of the postal code and electronic communications, and in particular Articles L. 35-1, L. 35-3 and R. 20-34;
In view of Act No. 2003-1365 of 31 December 2003 on Public service obligations and France Télécom;
In view of Law No. 2004-669 of 9 July 2004 on electronic communications and audiovisual communication services;
In view of the order of 3 March 2005 designating the operator Responsible for providing the component of the universal service provided for in Article L. 35-1 of the postal code and electronic communications (telephone service);
In view of the decree of 18 October 2006 of the Minister of Economy, Finance and The industry authorising Erenis to benefit its customers from the tariff reduction provided for in Article R. 20-34 of the Postal Code and electronic communications;
In view of Opinion No. 2000-531 of the Regulatory Authority Telecommunications dated 9 June 2000 relating to the offer of the social tariffs of France Télécom;
In view of the increase in the rate of the main subscription of France Télécom, which took place on 4 July 2006, bearing the price of the main subscription of 11.70 EUR 12.54 Euro excluding taxes;
Due to the request for an opinion from the Minister for Industry sent on 26 December 2006;
After having deliberated on 23 January 2007,
I. -Tariff social reduction (" Social rates ")
as a universal service
Paragraphs 1 and 2 of Article R. 20-34 of the above mentioned postal code and electronic communications provide that:
" Natural persons who are entitled to the minimum income for insertion or who receive the specific solidarity allowance or the allowance for adults with disabilities and who have subscribed to the fixed telephone service with the operator who The services authorised in accordance with the conditions laid down in III shall, on their request, benefit from a reduction of their telephone bill...
may also benefit from the same reduction, increased by 4 euros excluding taxes per month, the invalid. The benefit of Articles L. 16 and L. 18 of the Code of Military Invalidity Pensions and of the Victims of War whose supplementary invalidity is estimated at 10 % for the calculation of the supplementary pension provided for in Article L. 16 Of the said code, the blind war blind beneficiaries of Article L. 18 of the aforementioned code and the blind of the Resistance beneficiaries of Article L. 189 of the same Code. "
Component Provider" Telephone service "
of the universal service
France Télécom, provider designated by the Minister's Order of March 3, 2005 to offer until March 2009 the component" Telephone service " Of the universal service, is required to propose until that date the tariff reduction referred to in the above provisions.
In its reply to the call for applications for the provision of this component of the universal service, France Telecom has undertaken to offer the beneficiaries of the tariff social reduction under the first paragraph of I of Article R. 20-34 a stable social subscription rate of 5.43 EUR HT/month until March 2009 (1), or 43 % of the subscription ' Standard " Effective as of January 1, 2007, or 12.54 HT/month. For the beneficiaries of the tariff reduction under the second paragraph of the I of the same article, the monthly rate is 1.43 HT/month until March 2009, which represents 11 % of the subscription amount " Standard " In force as of 1 January 2007.
The subscription reduction granted by the operator (7.11 HT/month respectively for beneficiaries under the first paragraph and 11.11 HT/month for beneficiaries under the second paragraph) is Partially offset by " Tariff social reduction " Which is paid to it by the universal service fund, up to 4.21 HT under the first paragraph, and up to 8.21 HT/month for the beneficiaries under the second paragraph. The amount of this " Tariff social reduction ", proposed at 4.21 HT/month per beneficiary, is the subject of this notice.
The number of entitled subscribers who wished to benefit from the tariff reduction, and for which compensation is effectively Paid by the universal service fund to the provider of the component " Telephone service ", amounted to 703 102 in December 2005, a slight decrease of almost 0.8 % over one year.
The table below summarizes (in non-tax amounts) the evolution of France Telecom's proposed social subscription rate to beneficiaries For the first paragraph.
You can view the table in OJ
No 76, 30/03/2007 text number 126
Other operators
In accordance with the provisions of the postal code and electronic communications which allow other non-designated operators to propose a tariff reduction mechanism, which qualifies for compensation by the service fund Universal after the authorization of the Minister and within the limits of the amounts withheld for the provider of the component " Telephone service " Of the universal service, the Erenis operator on 18 August 2006 proposed an offer to that effect to the Minister, which received an authorisation by order of 18 October 2006.
II. -The monthly amount deducted for the year 2007
Paragraph 3 of the I of Article R. 20-34 of the above mentioned postal code and electronic communications provides
: The Minister responsible for electronic communications shall fix on 1 November each year for the following year, by order, taken after the opinion of the Electronic Communications and Postal Control Authority, the monthly amount of the reduction Granted. "
In this context, the Authority has been seized for the opinion of a draft order fixing the amount of the reduction for the year 2007.
The draft decree fixes the maximum monthly amount of the tariff reduction at 4.21 excluding taxes Granted for the year 2007, that is to say, a maximum amount of compensation by the fund, identical to the year 2006.
In the light of the figures available on the number of certificates returned to the social reduction provider The Authority estimates the number of potential beneficiaries to at most one million for the year 2007.
Therefore, the corresponding cost could amount to at most EUR 55 million, In the light of the cost of managing the social organisations estimated at EUR 1.5 million and the costs of the undertaking which manages the scheme on behalf of the operators, estimated at EUR 1.5 million, the whole set compensating by the fund Universal service. This cost represents 0.16 % of the turnover of the telephone service provided by the operators for the year 2004, the last year for which the final assessment is known, pending the final evaluation of the year 2005. It is therefore compatible with the ceiling of 0.8 % of the turnover of the telephone service to the public, fixed by paragraph 2 of III of Article R. 20-34 of the code of posts and electronic communications referred to
. Favourable to the draft decree fixing for 2007 the monthly amount of the telephone tariff reduction for certain categories of persons under the universal electronic communications service.
Done at Paris, 23 January 2007.
The President,
P. Champsaur
