Orange Romania is to launch its first commercial 3G mobile services in the first quarter of next year, announced Richard Moat, the company”s CEO, on the first day of the “International Broadband Communications Conference” in Bucharest.
This is the first time officials of the mobile phone operator have given a more precise indication as to when its 3G services will be launched, though they have said on many occasions until now that the new services would be launched during 2006. Orange”s main rival, Connex, was first to launch 3G services, this spring, with the technology for the time being only available in eight major cities.
3G technology allows users to hold video-calls and videoconferences, to receive TV programmes and video clips, as well as offering high speed access to the Internet through mobile phones.
Moat did not provide any details as to the number of cities that will be part of Orange”s 3G coverage area, or the number of customers the company is planning to attract.
“3G will initially target the business segment and residential customers, but will subsequently expand to the rest of the market,” he said.
The 3G network will cover the main cities in Romania – and where there is no 3G coverage, users will be able to use Orange”s EDGE network, which will offer national coverage by early next year.
For its part, Connex will continue to invest in expanding its 3G services, said Ted Lattimore, chairman and operations manager of Connex, which is owned by British operator Vodafone.
“This may be an ambitious target, but I believe that in several years” time all Romanians will be using 3G,” added the Connex official, who will hand over the running of the company on November 1 to Liliana Solomon, 41, who was recruited by Vodafone from Great Britain.
Cuneyt Turktan, the chairman of Telemobil, the company that provides the Zapp mobile services to the market, was upbeat about the expansion of fast Internet services in Romania.
Telemobil is also looking to expand its network coverage area (currently at 90% of the population) and to develop its 3G services based on EV-DO technology.
RomTelecom, Romania”s fixed-line telephone operator also has a clear strategy for broadband services involving plans to invest 450-500 million euros over the next three years in modernising its network. mihai.musatoiu@zf.ro