“What I know for sure is that I won’t launch the services this year, but next year,” Eftimie said without providing further details.
The company will operate as a mobile virtual network operator, which means it will not build its own network but rent infrastructure from the already existing operators.
Enigma Systems will use the voice and data network of an already existing operator but also use its own equipment.
“We have already bought part of the equipment we need to start our operations, it costs quite a lot. We will not launch a reseller-type MVNO, because we have our own equipment and signed interconnection agreements. We will have everything, except the radio network and the licenses to use the radio spectrum frequencies.”
How high will the investment be?
“The cost to launch a MVNO is EUR2 million or EUR3 million plus VAT if you use the technical solutions provided by other companies, but I am trying to bring this cost down to less than one million. I rely on my technical knowledge,” Eftimie says.
Romania does not have any MVNO at the moment. Veridian Systems, a company launched by a former Vodafone Romania executive, Marian Velicu, is making efforts to help companies from such industries as retail to launch such an operator, but Enigma does not work with it.
The mobile telephony market in Romania, which skyrocketed since the introduction of the GSM technology in late nineties, now numbers 20 million active SIM cards (users), divided among three giants–Orange, Vodafone and Cosmote–and a challenger–RCS&RDS.
Is there room for one more and if so, how could it lure customers? Can a small player with four employees plus the owner cope with technology, marketing and influence machine of the major telecoms on the market, some of which part of some of the most powerful communications groups in the world?
Although he is very reluctant to reveal his plans, the Enigma Systems founder believes he will easily find his niche on the market.
The first reason for his optimism is the phone number portability figures for the existing operators. “Do I stand a chance of attracting customers? Of course I do – as long as there are [post paid] customers who port their number from one network to another earlier than one year, this is a sign that services are not OK. As long as people leave operators, it means there’s room for alternative choices.”
The main attraction will be services that other operators are not offering yet, Eftimie says.
“Since the introduction of MMS and video calls, no innovative service has been launched on the local market in the last five years. LTE (4G) is but a new access technology, it is not a new service,” he says.
What new services will the company offer? The customers of the new operator will be able to have the same number on several SIM cards. The company will also allow customers to have several numbers on the same SIM cards or access to M2M (machine2machine) applications, such as those that enable people to control temperature in their homes remotely.
“We want all types of customers. But we are only interested in those customers who have a 3G phone, who want more from their phone.”
How are Enigma’s preparations for the launch of its mobile telephony services going? The company already has the equipment it needs, phone number allocations from the market regulator ANCOM and “11 agreements with five cell phone operators and six landline operators,” Eftimie says.
The negotiations to get the agreements signed were very difficult, Eftimie said, who found that both large operators and small operators who complain about the large ones have one thing in common: they try to put a spoke in the wheel of the newcomers trying to earn their own place on the market.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)