Cosmote starts battle with Orange and Vodafone with its first 3G Internet offer

Cosmote, no. 3 on the Romanian mobile telephony market, yesterday started the battle with giants Orange and Vodafone on the mobile Internet segment, by launching 3G Internet services with speeds of up to 21.6 Mbps in 11 cities and 300 towns.

Cosmote comes with lower fees than Vodafone, the only other operator that provides mobile Internet at speeds of up to 21.6 Mbps. 3G mobile Internet, the only segment of the telecom market that has seen a rise even in recession, had been missing from Cosmote's offer, which denied the company access to business clients and to young people who, in addition to voice services, also buy mobile data services. The absence of data services weighs heavily in operators' revenues: last year Cosmote posted 423 million euros in revenues with 7 million clients, while Orange and Vodafone, with 11 and 10 million clients respectively, collected more than double as much, around one billion euros. Stefanos Theocharopoulos, CEO of Cosmote Romania, hopes Cosmote will now be able to catch up with the leaders of the local telecom market in terms of revenues.