Mobiplus, which holds the only radio communications licence on TETRA (Terrestrial Trunked Radio) technology in Romania, will invest about 70 million dollars in 2001 and 2002 to develop the network.
“We are going to implement a pilot project in Bucharest this summer and we will conclude its first stage by the end of the year, in compliance with the licence.
TETRA network will cover six large Romanian cities by January 2002, while the most important roads from Romania will be covered over the next six months,” Liviu Gheorghe, RoTel general manager, maintained. RoTel is one of the significant shareholders in MobiPlus.
MobiPlus expects to attract about 28,000 users over the first operating year and to reach the figure of 150,000 users in 2010. MobiPlus network will be supplied with equipment produced by Nokia’s network department, a world leader in TETRA equipment. Nokia had a market share of 81% last year, followed by Motorola, with 17%, Marconi, holding 1%, and Simoco, with 1% of the market.
“As Nokia has been successful lately in GSM terminals, it decided to get more involved in TETRA projects, such as the one from Romania,” Angela Haraga, marketing communication officer with Nokia Networks, told Ziarul Financiar.
“The most important potential clients for TETRA are the police, the army, the ambulance services, as well as all the companies planning to have efficient, quick and stable communication services. But it does not mean that these services are not available for the natural persons,” Gheorghe added.
The most important advantage of TETRA communications is that many organisations may use the same network as if it belonged to them, eliminating the consequent investments and the maintenance expenses.
“As more and more clients use the network, the number of transmission channels and the emission-reception coverage will increase,” Liviu Gheorghe considers.
The licence was granted last December and is valid for a ten-year period. Established in December 2000, MobiPlus benefits from the experience of Radcom (the most important operator of conventional radio networks and trunking system) and Mediacom ’95, which is a distributor of GSM services and products. The company is also supported by Computerland and MediaPro.
Over the past years, TETRA has become the main competitor of cable and GSM communications. The system is however complementary to UMTS (third mobile phone generation or 3G), offering the entire range of communication services: voice transmission, multimedia-over IP and database interrogation.
TETRA is a standard for professional mobile radio (PMR) and was defined by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI).