At the end of last year, Romania had some 3.4 million mobile internet users. The growth on this segment exceeds 100 percent for some of the operators.
The tender organized by the National Agency for Information Technology and Communications (ANRCTI) was appealed in court by four of the five mobile operators locally - Orange, Vodafone, RCS&RDS and Zapp. The fifth operator, Cosmote Romania, is owned by Romtelecom and Greek operator OTE, who also controls Romtelecom.
This is the first time when major operators join in appealing such a decision.
All the parties involved already stepped in with their lawyers. The law firms most likely to handle the case are Nestor Nestor Diculescu Kingston Petersen, for Vodafone, and Bostina si Asociatii for ANRCTI. These are two of the top law firms in Romania.
“We think this decision is not encouraging fair competition on the mobile communications market. As the Competition Council said, shareholders of operators already owning mobile communications licenses were not eligible for the tender,” Vodafone officials said.
Furthermore, they added, the license was granted for a price lower compared to other licenses, some €1 million.
Romtelecom did not own mobile internet license, but had a common offer with Cosmoe for fixed broadband internet and mobile services for residential and business clients.
ANRCTI head Liviu Nistoran said the evaluation process was objective and made by an experts’ commission. “This license adds to higher competition on the market and, implicitly, to lower prices for internet and phone services,” Nistoran told Business Standard.
