Romania Proposes Cosmote, Telemobil, RCS&RDS To Start Cutting Interconnection Fees as of ‘09

According to ANC’s draft decision, Cosmote Romania, and Telemobil, which operates the Zapp network, will have to cut their interconnection fees to 6.4 eurocents ($0.0802) on February 1, 2009 and to 5.67 eurocents on January 1, 2010, ANC said in a statement. Cosmote Romania's current interconnection fee is 8.2 eurocents and Telemobil's - 8.01 eurocents.

RCS&RDS will have to cut the interconnection fee to 7.21 eurocents as of February 1, 2009 and to 6.4 eurocents from January 1, 2010 from 7.43 eurocents now.

The country’s two biggest wireless operators Vodafone Romania and Orange Romania will make a final cut in their interconnection fees on January 1, 2009 to 5.03 eurocents from 6.4 eurocents. The two companies started the process of cutting these fees in 2006.

”We can estimate that these remedies will trigger a decrease of 25%-30% of the phone bill in the next three years,” ANC’s president Liviu Nistoran said in the statement.

ANC’s draft decision is now open for public discussion.

Romania's mobile phone penetration rate rose to 106.2% at the end of 2007 from 80.7% a year earlier, ANC said earlier.

($ = 0.7979 euro)