Telecom regulator ANCOM will organize in the first half of 2012 an auction to grant mobile telephony licenses for radio frequencies in the 900 MHz and 1,800 MHz bands, currently used by operators Orange, Vodafone and Cosmote.
ANCOM decided to extend until December 31, 2012 Orange and Vodafone’s GSM licenses.
The new licenses will take effect on January 1, 2013 (for the frequency bands currently used by Orange and Vodafone) and on April 6, 2014 (for the frequency bands currently used by Cosmote), said ANCOM president Catalin Marinescu.
The regulator has not yet decided on a firm auction date or published all auction rules, but this is set to happen in the first half of next year. Because of this, it is currently not very clear what will happen at the auction if another operator wins the blocks of radio spectrum currently used by Orange and Vodafone.
The only thing that seems certain at the moment is that RCS&RDS will be one of the operators that will fight to buy a block of the 900 MHz frequency spectrum.
How much will the state collect from the radio spectrum auction? The ANCOM president refrained from making any estimates, but cited the situation in Greece, where the state got EUR380 million from the sale of a 15-year license. In Romania it is as yet unclear if the state will issue 10-year or 15-year licenses. However, according to sources close to the talks, the state expects to collect over EUR200 million from the sale of license.
(English version by Daniela Stoican)