Today, ANCOM and the telecom industry representatives which attended the Consultative Council meeting have completed the technical and administrative terms for the provision, in parallel, of third generation and second generation electronic communications services in the 900 MHz and 1800 MHz frequency bands.
The provision of 3G services (i.e. multimedia and data transmission) in these bands will be possible as soon as the operators’ licences are amended, in compliance with the following obligations: continuity in providing the 2G services (i.e. voice), protection of the GSM systems that will further operate in the 900 MHz and 1800 MHz bands, as well as protection of the radiocommunications systems existing in the adjacent bands.
The operators envisaged by this decision are Orange Romania, Vodafone Romania and Cosmote Romanian Mobile Telecommunications, holding licences that grant them the right to use the frequencies in these bands and will now be able to also offer 3G services (data, multimedia) in the bands which so far have been exclusively used for the provision of voice and data services over GPRS and EDGE. This will be possible only upon investments in re-designing the networks and in installing new types of equipment capable to use both technologies, namely that specific to the second generation mobile communications systems and that specific to the third generation systems.
As soon as this decision becomes effective, in Romania there will be three active mobile telephony providers, holders of GSM licences, that will also be able to provide 3G services based on these licences (i.e. Orange Romania, Vodafone Romania and Cosmote Romanian Mobile Telecommunications) and four operators – holders of 3G licences (i.e. Orange Romania, Vodafone Romania, Telemobil and RCS & RDS).
“This measure comes as a result of the regulatory authority’s declared intention to promote the development of broadband electronic communications in Romania. Together with the CDMA licence granted by ANCOM in 2008 and the future review of the local loop usage regime, the liberalisation of the frequency spectrum in the 900 and 1800 MHz bands could contribute to increasing the penetration of broadband Internet access“, Catalin Marinescu, the President of ANCOM, stated.
This decision was preceded by the adoption by the Electronic Communications Committee (ECC) of the European Conference of Postal and Telecommunications Administrations (CEPT) of certain reports regarding the compatibility between the UMTS and the GSM systems operating in the 900 MHz and 1800 MHz bands and the compatibility between the UMTS 900/1800 MHz and the systems operating in the adjacent bands, and, subsequently to these, of a decision. All the abovementioned documents were adopted based on the mandate issued by the European Commission to CEPT, on 5 July 2006. Subsequently to the measures taken by CEPT, the so-called GSM Directive was amended and signed in September 2009 by the President of the European Parliament and by the President of the Council of Ministers, whereas, to this end, the European Commission adopted a decision which entered into force at the same time as the abovementioned Directive.