The fixed local telephony services aimed at individual consumers remain a RomTelecom monopoly due to infrastructure problems. The corporate segment sees a different picture, though.
Companies have become the target of increasingly more operators providing integrated communication services: local and international voice, data and video services.
One of these operators is Astral Telecom, which started out as a cable TV business, became an ISP and is now taking on the telephony market by providing bundled fixed and mobile services.
Astral Telecom yesterday said it would launch an integrated service bundle early in December, set to include telephony, Internet and cable TV, and also provide mobile telephony services to its clients as of next year, following a partnership with a 900 MHz operator.
Astral Telecom will practically function as a mobile telephony dealer, adding this service to its communications package, as explained by Dinu Malacopol, executive manager of the Internet & Data department. "We have signed interconnection agreements with RomTelecom for the centres in Bucharest, Galati and Cluj, but will conclude new agreements by the end of the year in order to provide nationwide coverage," Malacopol stated.
At the same time, the company is conducting interconnection tests with mobile telephony operators Orange and MobiFon, a stage due for conclusion next week.
Malacopol explained the company's main target was the small and medium-sized enterprise segment and the corporate sector in general. Astral estimates it will have 10,000 such clients in the first quarter next year. The company's telephony services based on the VoIP technology are currently used for free by 100 clients in four cities, as part of a pre-commercial stage. As for the tariffs for the new services, Malacopol said they would be "different." victor@zf.ro
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