“Each company should independently solve the issue of its participation in Armix”

Interview of the member of Public Service Regulatory Committee (PSRC) of Armenia Samvel Arabajyan to Mediamax Agency and Itel.am portal

- How do you assess establishment of “Armix” Armenian Fund for Internet Traffic Exchange, and how is the PSRC decision on organizing free of charge peering among providers correlated to establishment of this structure?

- We are pleased with the initiative on establishing Armix. In fact, for the first time providers have tried to self-regulate and find a solution, which will lead to mutually beneficial economic and technical solutions for all operators.

The necessity to realize such an idea without interference of the regulatory body had been felt for a long time already. This is a popular practice worldwide, however in many European countries establishment of a peering center is dictated to the operators by the state, is a property of the state or is formed as a result of the regulator’s policy.

PSRC has studied this practice and possesses the necessary information on the world developments as to the issue of peering centers. If we speak of PSRC decision on organizing free of charge peering, I believe that we have chosen the most liberal path, have set a few obligatory conditions for the companies and do not impose operators’ participation in Armix project.

At the same time, I believe that the overwhelming majority of the operators will join this structure and will realize their peering connections within its framework, since the presence of all peering connections in one point is economically effective and easy to organize.

At that we believe that each company should independently solve the issue of its participation in Armix. In PSRC decision, we fixed the following: the minimum peering threshold should make 10Mb/sec, the average load should not exceed 60% of the transmission capacity of the operators’ network. In terms of quality, for users very important is the absence of limitations, which will facilitate the process of gaining information from Armenian resources, bypassing foreign servers. Thus, time and money is saved, the quality of internet is increased and the operators save up sums, paid for purchase of international traffic. 

- PSRC recently approved the form of reporting on provision of mobile connection services by the three operators. What does this decision aim at, and can such monitoring lead to revealing the operator, which occupies a dominating position in the market of mobile connection services?

- For correct assessment of the situation in the market, any regulator should possess information on the financial and technical state of the operators, on traffic flows, etc. Correct assessment of the market does not mean revealing the dominating company, but provides for control over the quality of connection, certain monitoring over the common tendencies and timely reaction if there are extraordinary situations occurring.

I should note that companies used to provide reporting before as well, however PSRC decision allows improving this procedure. Besides, PSRC regulates tariffs for landline connection and it is very important for us to know the real picture of traffic flows to prevent unwanted situations.

Of course, PSRC can also define the dominating company in the market of mobile connection services, but this was not the main aim of the decision. Initially, we set ourselves the task of receiving detailed and trustworthy information.

- At which stage is the process of studying prospects of implementing the service of mobile number portability (MNP) in Armenia?

- The Committee carries out works on studying the international practice, although, if we are honest, we have not much progressed as to this issue after our latest interview. As a result of research, carried out, we found out that different countries implemented MNP in different ways, and this became a reason of certain investment and organizational problems at the transition stage.

My personal opinion is that it is early to speak of MNP implementation in Armenia. Our market is at the stage of development yet, and we should understand which of the possible schemes we can implement in Armenia, since after making radical changes, it will be very difficult to correct the situation. We need a weighted decision, which will have clear economic grounds. I believe that we will need at least 1-2 more years to assess the situation in the market.

- What is the general situation in the Armenian market of internet services today?

- We observe impetuous developments in the market. The number of broadband internet users has reached approximately 100 thousand subscribers instead of previous 75 thousands. There are positive phenomena as to reduction of tariffs as well.

Providers have started providing for higher speeds for smaller sums. If in the beginning of the year the total volume of international traffic consumption in the country made 3.7Gigabit per second, today we register 5.5-6 Gigabit per second. This means that consumption of international traffic in Armenia is in geometric progression.

At the same time, there are issues, which we will study in the nearest future and will present to the public. In particular, here we speak of establishment of local data-centers for saving traffic and means, paid to external operators for rent of international channels. This way we will be able to secure best quality and low tariffs, as well as develop a new type of business in Armenia – establishment of data-centers. The current situation with the external sources of information, as well as the domination of Russian language websites (over 70% in the structure of traffic) should become a subject of serious research and further actions by the interested structures.