ANCOM and ANRCETI have published the Joint Report on the Roaming Agreement between Romania and the Republic of Moldova in 2023. Following the spectacular increases in 2022 (the first year of enforcement of the Roaming Agreement between the two states), the internet roaming traffic continued to register massive increases in 2023 as well, amid the reduction in the average price paid by users for this service.
The full Report on the evolution of roaming traffic between Romania and Moldova in 2023 is available, in Romanian, here and here.
1% of mobile users in Romania and, respectively, 10% of those in the Republic of Moldova, roamed a total of 6 million days in the neighbouring state in 2023. The average consumption profile continued to register significant increases, highlighted in the following table.
The average daily internet roaming traffic for the users from the Republic of Moldova roaming in Romania doubled in 2023, reaching almost 3 times more that the internet roaming traffic of the users from Romania roaming in the Republic of Moldova, who paid an average almost 1 Euro for every 45 MB consumed daily.
The development of the bilateral roaming services in 2023 was fuelled by three sources: a 5% increase in the number of roaming users (due to the increase in the number of Romanian users roaming in the Republic of Moldova, by one third), a 33% increase in roaming duration, as well as an increase in intensity of the roaming service consumption (the daily average internet consumption on a Romanian card in roaming in the Republic of Moldova increased by 32%, while consumption in reverse flow doubled).
The Agreement
On 11 February 2022, the governments of Romania and the Republic of Moldova signed an Agreement on reducing tariffs for the provision of international roaming services and international calls between the two countries. The Agreement entered into force on 25 March 2022 and is implemented with the support of the National Regulatory Agency for Electronic Communications and Information Technology (ANRCETI) of the Republic of Moldova, respectively of Romania’s National Authority for Management and Regulation in Communications (ANCOM).
The agreement aims to create the framework for collaboration between the two countries to sustainably reduce tariffs for the provision of international roaming services on the retail market (voice, SMS and data), respectively of international calls between the two countries.
Read more about roaming with the Republic of Moldova, here.