Datek Telecom profit up

Datek Telecom SA Company in H1 made $800,000 in turnover, with profit amounting to about 20% of it, Leonard Lichi, the company’s executive manager told Ziarul Financiar. 2000’s turnover reached $1.5 million.

Dealing in engineering (which means it is both an integrator and a contractor or “valued reseller”), the company focused on IT&C projects mainly, to which added value can be generated, the manager of the company said. This is a rather narrow specialisation, because the company implements digital networks for data communications.

The company was established as Datek Communications SRL back in 1994, starting out as a branch of an Austrian company. It became Datek Telecom SA in 1996 and is currently fully Romanian-owned.

Datek Telecom now has six Romanian shareholders, all of them natural persons, with Leonard Lichi holding the controlling interests.

The company’s share capital amounts to $1.5 million, in addition to lines of credit with Romanian banks for $500,000. “A year’s turnover is not relevant. Since we are a project-oriented company, our business cycle lasts approximately two years,” Lichi specified.

In order to add value to the projects contracted, the company has developed two original hardware product categories, as well: a radio communications network and a telegraphic exchange.

The equipment, along with the necessary software, developed by the engineers at Datek Telecom would be exported, Leonard Lichi said.

The radio networks operating on the 2.5GHz bandwidth were created for Internet connections and have already been bought by web service providers, such as Deutsche Telekom’s ISP division.

The company is also developing such a network (ATM fibre optics backbone) in Bucharest. The service provided by this network, the Dnet, allows for 256Kbps-1,5Mbps Internet connections.

Dnet is very useful for large institutions, such as banks, private companies, mainly for the foreign ones, in which we implemented a videoconferencing service as well, says Lichi.

“Dnet is also used for providing VPN (Virtual Private Network) services, which come with advanced encryption and digital certificates, that is the basis for the electronic signature,” Datek Telecom manager said.

The company will invest one million dollars in the development of Dnet this year and will try to attract foreign funding.

Datek Telecom’s partners include Hewlett-Packard, Bull, ICL, Marconi, Infonet. This portfolio consists of some 30- 35 foreign companies, as well as the Finance Ministry, the National Defence Ministry, RomTelecom, NBR, Metrorex, the Administration of the Constanta Sea Harbour, the Environment Ministry, SNCFR (the National Railway Company), Societatea Nationala de Radiocomunicatii (National Radio-communications Company-SNR).