ANCOM president Catalin Marinescu on Tuesday said Romanians pay one of the lowest tariffs for mobile telephony in the European Union, namely 2.2 eurocents per minute, seven times lower than in 2003. He added this proves the impact of proper regulations on the development of a market and a society.
The regulator said Romania’s telecom market currently is one of the most competitive profile markets in the EU, as Romanian users rejoice low tariffs, premium services and rising penetration rates.
Mobile telephony saw significant growth both when it comes to the number of users, which saw a 257% increase since 2003 until 2011, from 6.5 million to 23,42 million, and in terms of monthly average voice traffic per user, which rose from 56 minutes in 2003 to 205 minutes in 2011.
The value of the fixed-line telephony market reached EUR530 million in 2011, down 30% from 2003.
The phone number porting service, available in Romania since October 2008, has enabled users to keep their phone numbers when they choose another mobile network. Due to this service, over 580,000 mobile phone numbers and over 280,000 fixed-line phone numbers have been ported so far.
Broadband internet services have seen constant growth overt the past ten years, with the number of fixed-line and mobile broadband connections reaching 10.8 million at the end of 2011, from 0.2 million in 2003.
Overall, the market of broadband internet services rose 496% to EUR550 million, compared to EUR9 million in 2003.
ANCOM data also show that telecom operators’ investments in developing the infrastructure amounted to EUR6 billion between 2003 and 2011.
Communications Minister Dani Nica on Tuesday said telecom regulations are meant to prevent market distortions, which may affect costumers on the medium and long run.