Communications Parameters, Fees and Value-Added Services Ordinance 2009 (KEM-V 2009)

The Communications Parameters, Fees and Value-Added Services Ordinance 2009 (KEM-V 2009, Federal Law Gazette II No. 212/2009 as last amended) defines the public numbering plan and the public dialing plan (as sub-plans for communications parameters), as well as the fees and general regulations applying to value-added services. The ordinance also defines allocation criteria and usage features for the various number ranges as well as the procedure for obtaining usage rights.

The KEM-V 2009 went into effect on July 7, 2009 in accordance with Art. 135 Par. 2 of the Telecommunications Act 2003 (TKG 2003, Federal Law Gazette I No. 70/2003 as last amended) in conjunction with Art. 1 of the Ordinance of the Federal Chancellor on the Announcement of RTR Ordinances in Federal Law Gazette II (Federal Law Gazette II No. 38/2005).

This ordinance is essentially a new version of RTR's 6^th Ordinance defining provisions for Communications Parameters, Fees and Value-Added Services, which was promulgated by its availability for inspection at RTR's premises and last amended by the ordinance in Federal Law Gazette II No. 77/2008 (KEM-V). As the entire KEM-V 2009 (including Annexes 1 and 2) was published in the Federal Law Gazette, all of the provisions in the ordinance can now be accessed in electronic form.

• Link to KEM-V 2009 in the Federal Law Gazette (in German)
  
  Important note:
  Due to misprints in the publication of the KEM-V 2009, the documents published in the Federal Law Gazette contain erroneous references in Articles 118 to 125. As a result, the correct paragraph reference was replaced with a "0" in nine references. The errors were remedied in Federal Law Gazette II No. 265/09.

The Ordinance, Annexes 1 and 2 as well as the accompanying explanatory remarks are also available for inspection at the premises of RTR, Mariahilfer Strasse 77–79, A-1060 Vienna, from Monday to Thursday, 8:00 am to 5:00 pm, and Friday from 8:00 am to 2:00 pm.

The explanatory remarks can also be downloaded below.

Area codes, local network names and geographical borders between local networks

Local network codes (area codes), their assignment to local network names, and the geographical boundaries between local networks are defined in Annex 1, while the geographical borders between local networks are specified in Annex 2 to the KEM-V 2009.

The borders between local networks can be downloaded below in the form of a Google Earth-compatible file "Ortsnetze KEM-V.kml" (zipped as "Ortsnetze KEM-V 2009.kml.zip"). The geographical borders between local networks have also been drawn as polygonal chains using the ArcView geographical information system. The background map used is the digital raster map of Austria based on TELE ATLAS data as of 2002 and the polygonal chain depicting the borders between Austrian municipalities (ArcData No.: AA-GEM-2001) as of October 23, 2003, supplied by WIGeoGIS GmbH. The borders between local network areas are therefore also available in the ArcView-compatible file "Ortsnetze KEM-V 2009.ARC-View.zip"; the names of the local networks can be downloaded in the file "Ortsnetznamen.xls".

Although the data is available in a format compatible with Google Earth and ArcView, the data published in the Federal Law Gazette represents the only legally binding definition.

Changes to the previous KEM-V (Federal Law Gazette II No. 77/2008)

The main changes in the content of the ordinance are as follows:

• Temporary expansion of the exception to the definition of value-added services to include voice services in addition to message services;
• Adaptation of usage periods for the purpose of simplified administration on the part of operators and the regulatory authority;
• Adaptations to the provisions governing value-added services in order to improve the protection of users and to increase transparency;
• Minor adaptations introduced in order to improve the provisions of the ordinance and to make them easier to comprehend.

The adoption of this ordinance was preceded by an extensive discussion process with market participants and other interested parties.

In some cases, the numbering of articles was shifted slightly in the new version of the ordinance. Therefore, in order to ensure clarity, the first pages of the explanatory remarks provide a list which maps article numbers from the old version of the KEM-V to those in the KEM-V 2009. In order to provide an easy-to-read overview of the changes in the new ordinance, the regulatory authority has also made a version of the KEM-V 2009 available in which all essential changes in content are highlighted in comparison to the old KEM-V (KEM-V 2009 vs. KEM-V_01.pdf).