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Telecom.IT : Romanian users pay lowest EU prices for mobile phone services
The telecommunications market has reduced prices for mobile phone calls by 70% in the last ten years, from 9.72 eurocents in 2003 to 3.07 eurocents in 2012. The average consumption has grown by 269% in this period, stimulating competition, the operators’ investments in networks and has functioned to the users’ benefit, said Catalin Marinescu, the president of ANCOM.
The authority presented at the international conference “Back to the future: the next 10 years in communications market”, the main effects of its activity on the development of the electronic communications market in Romania.
The document presented by ANCOM shows that the electronic communications market in Romania is today one of the most competitive communications market at EU level, Romanian users benefitting from small prices, quality services and growing penetration rates.
Mobile telephony rapidly spread in Romania and had spectacular growths, both for the number of users, which registered an increase of 257% between 2003m and 2011, and for the average monthly voice traffic which grew from 56 minutes in 2003 to 205 minutes in 2011.Although the number of fixed telephone lines grew by 7% between 2003 and 2011, the total voice traffic dropped by 32%, due to the drop of traffic to fixed networks. That led to the drop of the average voice traffic from a fix telephone line to 106 minutes in 2011, compared to 170 minutes in 2003.
The implementation of number portability in 2008 contributed to the increase of the users’ freedom of choice, 580,000 mobile phone numbers and 280 fix numbers being moved to other networks.
Internet access services have knows continuous increases in the last 10 years, the number of fix and mobile connections reaching 10.8 millions at the end of 2011, from 0.2 millions in 2003.
As for fixed Internet, Romania ranked first in Europe at the beginning of 2012, for the share to very rapid connections of at least 30 Mbps, which represent 45% of overall fixed connections (3.3 millions).
The introduction of new technologies modified the structure of active connections for mobile Internet access over 3 million connections being made through 3G, 3G+, EV-DO in 2011. At present, the highest available speed for mobile Internet access is 43.2 Mbps, while the most advanced mobile technology in 2003 was CDMA, with a maximum speed of 153 kbps.
The total number of subscribers for services of re-broadcasting of audiovisual programs doubles from 2.7 million in 2003 to 5.7 million subscribers at the end of 2011, after the appearance of DTH technology (which attracted 2.1 million subscribers by 31 December 2011 especially in the rural area).
On Tuesday, the authority launched an application allowing users to introduce data about the present consumption level or mobile phone services.