Connex target for 2003: 3 million customers

Ted Lattimore, MobiFon president and COO feels the Connex service will register some 2.6-2.7 million subscribers by the end of the year. “And if we gain another half million next year, we’ll be well over three million,” Lattimore told Ziarul Financiar.
Therefore, if the plans of the operator come to meet the estimates, Connex will be way beyond the three million-subscriber threshold.
The company has invested nearly $100 million on the Romanian market this year and has scheduled the same amount for 2003, as well. If MobiFon was to get a third generation licence, “it would be necessary to invest even more,” Lattimore specified.
MobiFon will launch third generation (3G) mobile telephony services on the Romanian market as early as by the middle of 2003, according to Ted Lattimore.
“We really have just been informed as to what the terms are for a third generation licence last week. So we have a lot of work to do. We have to do a lot of analysis, we have to determine what the business case would be for it. Yes, we would like to have a third generation licence, but we have work to do to determine if it’s worth it. If the licence conditions stand as they are today and if we were to get one of those licences, then I could see some 3G services being in the market as early as by the middle of next year,” he explained.
The third generation mobile services will allow for permanent high-speed wireless Internet access, as well as for fast transfer of large volumes of data, images, audio and video through the 3G networks.
The further progress of the 3G services is up to the applications that are currently being developed and how quickly those are being accepted by business and by consumers. The business is slower in accepting these services at the moment. “3G isn’t going to be required immediately, it will be a bigger service in Romania probably a couple of years from now,” Ted Lattimore added.
MobiFon is now getting ready to launch its own multimedia messaging service (MMS). “Connex feels the Multimedia Messages service is an innovative application and is planning to include it in its service portfolio. Connex intends to launch MMS early in 2003, when more MMS-enabled phones will be available on the market at more affordable prices, which will increase our clients’ chances of using this service,” Gabriela Matei, marketing manager with Connex told Ziarul Financiar.
MobiFon is also looking forward to the deregulation of the telecommunications market, which is less than two months away, that is January 1, 2003. MobiFon will not go into the local fixed telephony market, though.
“International traffic is something that we can deal with. What we’re trying to get people to understand is the dimensions now that they have available to them once the monopoly (i.e. RomTelecom’s) ends, and there are many services (…) and many options,” the Connex President and COO said.