Connex and Zapp. Fast Internet and 3G

Broadband communications are well appreciated by Romanian consumers and the number of customers taking advantage of these services (fast Internet access and the future 3G services) will increase over the coming years, according to the officials from some of the largest mobile telephone operators in Romania, who met in Bucharest on Tuesday at the conference “Local Loop Technologies”.

3G telephony is “something attractive, advanced from a technological point of view, something real,” said Ted Lattimore, Connex president and COO.

“A picture tells a thousand words, they say. 3G gives you access to both,” added Lattimore. He sees 3G as the next natural step, given that GSM grew so strongly in Romania (it is affordable and used by half of the population, says Lattimore). Connex announced it would start providing 3G services towards the end of 2005 or in 2006.

“There will be increasing use of data services,” explained Cuneyt Turktan, chairman of mobile telephony operator Zapp. He added that Zapp, the first operator in the world to use CDMA 2000 technology in the 450 MHz frequency band, would soon be offering mobile Internet access with download speeds of up to 2.4 Mbps and upload speeds of up to 153 Kbps.

Fully aware of the development of fast Internet services, Pieter Bakker, RomTelecom CCO is more cautious than the Connex and Zapp officials. “I have my doubts,” he said, arguing that Romanians cannot currently afford subscriptions of 20-30 euros per month for fast Internet access.
mihai.musatoiu@zf.ro