Bermuda’s dominant telecommunications operators now face stringent restrictions on their pricing decisions and business practices. A 180-page tome published yesterday by the Regulatory Authority imposes strict new rules for BTC, Bermuda CableVision, Bermuda Digital Communications and Digicel and sets the stage for how the market for electronic communications products and services will operate in the foreseeable future.Kent Stewart, Chairman of the Board of the Regulatory Authority of Bermuda, said the rules — called “Obligations for Telecommunications Operators” — had been developed in consultation with industry players and were in keeping with the RA’s mandate to create a level playing field for all Bermuda telecommunications companies.“This is necessary in the tiny Bermuda telecommunications sector in order to avoid the throttling of competition by a few large and dominant players,” Mr Stewart said.“This involves a process by which, speaking in very broad terms, dominant players are handicapped in order to allow non-dominant players to successfully compete.This process has involved a lengthy consultation with telecommunications companies.“In the spirit of openness and transparency which underlies the operations of the Regulatory Authority, this consultation has ensured that their views have been taken into account in the defining of ‘Operators with Significant Market Power’, as the legislation calls them, and in the creation of obligations for those operators by which a level playing field is created.”A total of 23 markets were analysed — nine retail and 14 wholesale.Highlights of the rule book include:• Bermuda Telephone Company’s retail rates to be raised by no more than the change in the previous year’s Consumer Price Index, plus 2%.• Bermuda CableVision is prevented from adjusting their retail rates for inflation.• BTC’s wholesale line rental for residential service must be at 15% less than the retail rate.• BTC and Bermuda CableVision’s wholesale broadband access services to be at 15% less than the retail rate.• Bermuda Digital Communications and Digicel not to engage in price discrimination if either of them provides wholesale mobile services to a licensee.Interested members of the public can obtain copies of the document from the Authority’s website at www.rab.bm free of charge.The RA is also setting the stage to implement measures which would allow customers to change internet and mobile telephone providers seamlessly. It is proposing that e-mail providers be required to forward mail from an old e-mail address to a new one for six months without charge when the customer switches providers, to automatically notify emailers of the address change and to keep old e-mail addresses unused for up to one year.On cell phones, the RA is proposing that cell phones purchased from a cell phone company at a subsidised price can be unlocked after 30 days of service, while those purchased at an unsubsidised price can be unlocked at any time.The public is invited to participate in an online survey (www.rab.bm) to assist the RA in assessing the proposals.The deadline for responding to the consultation documents is September 30th.“We are very interested in people’s views, and do not want to impose the way we think on Bermuda if Bermuda sees things a different way,” said Philip Micallef, CEO of the Regulatory Authority.“People can write in to me at the Authority by e-mail, or through the Post Office. The consultation documents are available free of charge on our website, as are address details.”The RA has been presiding over a radical transformation of the telecommunications market intended to promote more competition and lower prices since it was set up at the end of January as the industry’s sole regulator. At the end of April it began issuing Integrated Communications Operating Licenses which frees telecoms companies to compete in different segments of the market.Twenty ICOLs were issued — setting the stage for carriers to provide services such as internet, television and cellphone as one bundled package.