Shortly after PCNET's launch of voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) services for international calls, another major Internet service provider in Romania, Euroweb has decided to enter the newly liberalised fixed telephony market.
Euroweb Romania will start providing VoIP services for international calls by prepaid cards. It had actually started providing such services before the deregulation, according to a contract concluded with RomTelecom. This contract enabled Euroweb to operate as RomTelecom's agent.
"The new prepaid card-based services are provided under the same contract. At the moment, the companies that want to legally provide such services may not do it unless they sign a contract like we did, because the guidelines on internetworking with RomTelecom have not been issued yet," Gheorghe Rusu, Euroweb Romania general manager said.
A decision of the National Communications Regulating Authority (ANRC) binds RomTelecom to supply any company interested with its terms of infrastructure use by February 1.
"As soon as RomTelecom supplies the conditions, we will have two choices. Either continue to be an agent for them or conclude an internetworking contract and provide voice services on our own," Rusu specified.
The first six months of this year could see as much as several hundred providers of VoIP for international calls emerging, the official says.
"Many will enter this market, and many will perish. Soon after the deregulation in the Czech Republic two years ago, 180 VoIP providers had emerged. Last fall there were only 32 such companies left," Gheorghe Rusu added.
"Euroweb's voice services will be possible to use by prepaid cards worth $10, $20 and $50. I estimate the cost for a one-minute call to the US, Canada and Western Europe to reach 10 to 15 cents, while a call to a Southern African country will be somewhere in the neighbourhood of 40 cents," Rusu said.
The Euroweb Romania representative specified the prepaid cards would be sold through the office network of the Posta Romana (Romanian Postal Company), retail chains and gas stations.
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