Romtelecom wins fight for mobile communications licence

Romtelecom, the largest fixed telephony operator on the local market, has won the competition for the mobile communications licence put up for sale by the Romanian state, sources from the telecom market told ZF. The winning of the licence by the operator controlled by the OTE (Greece) and by Deutsche Telekom (Germany) groups will tighten competition on the local telecom market even more, because Romtelecom will be able to provide wireless telephony and Internet services in areas so far covered exclusively by mobile phone operators, a business which could bring the operator revenues worth tens of millions of euros per year. Romtelecom won the licence, leaving behind offers made by Net Point (a company controlled by RCS&RDS), Saudi Oger (Zapp’s majority shareholder) and Tactical Network – a Czech investment fund behind which are the Romanian Post Office and Chinese producer of telecom equipment ZTE. The official announcement on the winner of the licence is expected today, from the National Regulatory Authority for Communications and Information Technology (ANRCTI). On the other hand, the legal battle started by Orange, Vodafone, RCS&RDS and Zapp, in order to block the race for securing the mobile communications licence, is expected to intensify, considering that, after the announcement of the winning offer, ANRCTI has two weeks at its disposal to effectively hand over the licence to Romtelecom. In fact, the next date is set for September 9 in the court case filed by the four operators, with a view to suspending the procedures of awarding the mobile licence.