We prepared 15 dispute procedures relating to interconnection. The Federal Court secured both ComCom’s leading cases, which had been prepared by OFCOM in its first comprehensive and time-consuming application of the costing methodology based on LRIC (forward-looking long-run incremental costs based on equivalent assets). After proceedings lasting 5½ years, the Federal Court for the first time confirmed the methodology applied and the interconnection prices decreed for 2000-2003. On this basis, we commenced preparation of the suspended procedures for the subsequent years; this is still under way. The court also supported the so-called contractual retroactive effect clause, which enables interconnection partners of market-dominant providers to benefit, even retrospectively, from price reductions decreed in third-party procedures.

In its decision of 30 July 2006, on the basis of an application from OFCOM, ComCom clearly reduced the price for porting individual numbers of the market-dominant Swisscom Fixnet. The Federal Court has since upheld the decision.

Since the beginning of 2006, seven procedures relating to the termination charges of Swisscom Mobile, Orange, Sunrise und Tele 2 have been pending. The competition commission was consulted on the issue of market dominance. In a report dated 20 November 2006, it decided that Swisscom Mobile, Orange und Sunrise are market-dominant in the area of termination of calls in their own mobile networks and that cost-based prices would therefore have to be determined by ComCom.

Decisions of 10 June 2005:

BGE 132 II 257 and BGE 132 II 284:

Decision of 3 July 2006:

RPW 2006/4 p. 739 ff: