ICTA held meeting with members of Public Council
The Information Communication Technologies Agency (ICTA), the regulatory body for telecommunication and postal services in Azerbaijan, held a meeting with members of the Public Council under the Ministry of Digital Development and Transport (MDDT).
The meeting, attended by Rashad Bayramov, Advisor to the Minister of Digital Development and Transport, and ICTA management, was opened by Nail Mardanov, Chairman of the Agency’s Board, who provided information on the work done by the agency in 2024.
Noting that 2024 was a productive year for ICTA, the agency’s chairman said that last year saw the publication of the statistics of complaints in E-Complaint system, the index of complaints about the use of telecoms services and the average response time to complaints, as well as the launch of a number of e-services.
Such e-services include issuing permits for radio electronic means, accepting applications related to postal services through the E-Complaint system and collecting reports from postal operators by expanding the data collection system.
The guests emphasized that retail prices of mobile operators in Azerbaijan are not regulated by the state, so prices are high and regulation of mobile operators’ prices could be useful.
ICTA official noted that according to the legislation in force today, mobile operators determine their own prices and these prices are not regulated by the state.
The meeting also discussed the effective organization of interoperator functional interconnection ‘Local exchange’. Osman Gunduz reported that there are difficulties with interconnection and ‘routing’ of local traffic through international exchange points. ICTA chairman noted that monitoring was conducted in this direction, the results were found unsatisfactory, and the number of interconnection ports was increased under ICTA control: “At present, local traffic exchange between Tier 1 operators in the country is brought to a satisfactory level’.
At the same time, discussions were held in the direction of 5G network construction, preparation and adoption of new legislative acts. It was reported that the new draft law provides for joint authorization of radio frequencies and authorization of the mobile virtual network operator. These innovations are expected to give an impetus to the development of mobile communication services in our country.
Following the discussions, Chairman of the Public Council Siruz Abasbeyli made a speech and said that ICTA has implemented important projects in a short period of time, and to make these projects more effective, it is necessary to expand public awareness.
It was also recommended to hold such meetings on a regular basis, to take into account the opinion of the Public Council members in the process of preparing projects, including drafts of normative legal acts.
It should be noted that the ICTA regulates and supervises information and communications technology and communications (telecommunications and postal), as well as radio spectrum management in the country.
