Regulator drafts document on forming publicly owned telecoms operator

Ukraine’s National Commission for State Regulation of Communications and Informatization (NCCIR or NKRZI) has released a draft document outlining the principles of a proposed national information and communication infrastructure (NICI), with the purpose of ensuring universal access to modern telecommunications services and providing public services, internet access, fixed, mobile and IP telephony, cloud-based data processing and electronic administrative services to government agencies. To realise these objectives the NCCIR suggests creating a public telecommunications and information services operator, which according to newspaper Kommersant, would require unprecedented powers, including the right to assume management of all communications networks in the country in the event of a national emergency, and the capability to administer ‘112’ emergency call facilities. The document suggests that the new public operator is likely to be formed on the basis of an existing company with national resources.