October 27 (SeeNews) - Romania's competition regulator said on Tuesday it has approved the sale of local mobile operator Telemobil, the company that operates the Zapp mobile network, to Cosmote, the mobile unit of Greek telecommunications group OTE.
The deal does not lead to consolidation or to establishment of a dominant position on the relevant markets, the Competition Council said in a statement.
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“Practically, this operation creates a dynamic environment for the competition on the telecommunication services market, especially on the mobile telephony and Internet access services markets and the expected result is a rise in the number of options for the final consumer,” the regulator added.
In July Cosmote agreed to buy 100% of Telemobil from Saudi company Oger for 207 million euro ($308 million). Telemobil holds a CDMA licence in the 450 MHz band and a 3G license at 2100 MHz. Its 3G network currently covers more than 20 Romanian cities.
3G is a generic term covering a range of wireless network technologies, including WCDMA, CDMA, UMTS and EDGE. It combines high-speed mobile access with Internet Protocol (IP) based services.
There are six wireless operators in the country of 21.5 million people: the local units of France's Orange, global telecoms giant Vodafone and Greek Cosmote, Romanian telecommunications group RCS&RDS, Zapp Mobile and fixed-line operator Romtelecom, majority-owned by Greece’ OTE.
($ = 0.6721 euro)