ACT : Commission Decision 2003/548/EC on the minimum set of leased lines with harmonised characteristics and associated standards referred to in Article 18 of the Universal Service Directive.
CONTENT : Article 18(3) of the Universal Service Directive provides for the publication of the minimum set of leased lines with harmonised characteristics and associated standards to be published as part of the list of standards referred to in Article 17 of Directive 2002/21/EC (Framework Directive). The minimum set of leased lines was previously defined in Annex II to Council Directive 92/44/EEC on the application of open network provision (ONP) to leased lines. That Directive was repealed by the Framework Directive.
This Decision provides continuity of the legal basis for the minimum set of leased lines, for the purpose of implementation of the relevant provisions in the Framework Directive and the Universal Service Directive. The minimum set of leased lines in this Decision is the same as that in Directive 92/44/EEC, except that the references to European Telecommunications Standards (ETSs) have been replaced by references to European Standards (EN), as agreed by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute in 2001. However, leased lines that comply with the previous ETS standards should continue to be deemed in accordance with the requirements for the minimum set of leased lines.
This Decision identifies the minimum set of leased lines with harmonised characteristics and associated standards and forms an integral part of the list of standards published in accordance with Article 17 of the Framework Directive 2002/21/EC. The current version of the list of standards, only containing voluntary provisions, was published in the Official Journal of the European Union in December 2002. For reasons of differences in procedure and in legal effect, this Decision distinguishes the chapters of the list of standards that include mandatory provisions in this Decision from those chapters that only include voluntary provisions.