“RCS&RDS would like to inform the public that lowering termination rates was a European Union recommendation to benefit end users exclusively,” the company said in a statement Monday.
If the measure proposed by telecom market regulator ANCOM is applied starting January 1, 2014, phone bills will be lower by EUR150 million per year.
“The new rates proposed by ANCOM are the result of a formula considering costs, which is also applied in other states, and are fairly computed,” the statement reads.
High termination rates, set arbitrarily and without considering costs, cause competition problems, which is why the antitrust authority launched an investigation on the telecom market in February 2011, RCS&RDS said.
Vodafone, Orange, Cosmote and Romtelecom warned last week that lowering termination rates starting January 1 would reduce telecom operators’ annual revenues by EUR200 million, which would affect infrastructure investments, especially in 4G networks.
At the end of August, ANCOM said it would propose reducing termination charges starting January 1, 2014 from EUR0.307/minute to EUR0.086/minute for mobile calls and from EUR0.067/minute to EUR0.015/minute for landline calls.
RCS&RDS is one of the largest local telecom operators. It offers cable TV, Internet, hard-line and mobile phone services covering over 200 towns and cities.
The RCS&RDS group is indirectly controlled by businessman Zoltan Teszari.