Electronic communications service

According to the PTS, in order for a service to be an electronic communications service it must meet the following criteria[PTS-ER-2009:12]:

“the service is provided to another (external) party, on commercial grounds, and
the service consists mainly in the conveyance of signals, and
the service provider has the power to control the transmission”.

Slide Notes

Bo Martinsson, Per Bergstrand, Marcus Boklund, Dejan Jaksic, Camilla Philipson Watz, Roland Svahn, and Cecilia Östrand, ‘Which services and networks are subject to the Electronic Communications Act? Guidance’, Swedish Post and Telecom Agency (PTS), vol. PTS-ER-2009:12, p. 60, http://www.pts.se/upload/Rapporter/Internet/2009/services-e-com-act-2009-12.pdf Links to an external site.

Transcript

[slide386] Well, an Electronic Communication Service, according to the PTS, is a service that meets these criteria. It's provided to others on commercial grounds. It consists mainly in the conveyance of signals. And the service provider has the power to control the transmission. You have to meet all three requirements. So that means if you have a service that you make available for free, it isn't regulated by this at all. So if it's not commercial, you don't have to worry about these rules. If it isn't just about conveying signals, the rules don't apply. And if the service provider doesn't have the ability to control the communications, it also doesn't apply. So does this apply to the case for Voice over IP? Is it regulated? Well, it depends on how the service providers implement it. But they could implement it in a way that it's not an Electronic Communication Service.