The Legislation governing the sector of Post and ICT has gone through two (02) major steps:
During the era of single operator, and similarly to other sectors namely sectors designated as "public services of networks", post and telecommunications experienced several flaws :
As a result, and following the global trend of opening up public services networks to market economy, the 2000-03 legislation was passed with the core objective was to introduce competition in the telecommunications sector. An economic transition supported by the strong growth potential of this sector and by popular enthusiasm for ICT services. This objective is precisely mentioned in article 1 of the Law 2000-03: " The objectives of this law is to develop and provide quality postal and telecommunications services in an neutral, transparent and non-discriminatory manner within a competitive environment ".
Three major changes were needed to achieve this goal of demonopolization of this sector :
Indeed the transition from single operator to competition involves the withdrawal of the state from the commercial sphere has been attended by the creation of two private operators (i.e. commercial) commonly known as the historical operators (Art 12 of Law 2000-03)
It must underlined that despite the transfer of its public service activities to commercial ones in favour of these two operators, the State kept its sovereign prerogatives by enacting standards, laws and industry regulations, the exclusive use frequency spectrum, monitoring of telecommunications ...
Moreover, because the competition is likely to be violated and liable to distortion, it was necessary to create of a regulatory authority to preserve and promote competition in the postal and telecommunications markets or restore it in case it is deemed necessary.
The 2000-03 legislation was inspired by the universal principles arising from the recommendations of the International Telecommunication Union which include :
Following the adoption of 2000-03 law, the regulation of the sector has undergone profound changes and the adoption of several new executive decrees dealing mainly with the following aspects :
To streamline the interconnection by connecting all networks existing in Algeria in one large national network.
Legal and regulatory rules on interconnection are also intended to protect the competition against abusive practices to avert entry barriers on the new players by the already existing operators :