Lower interconnection tariffs for landline phones in Romania

Romania's interconnection tariffs for landline telephones will drop by 18 percent from the beginning of July, to 0.67 euro cents per minute, the Romanian National Authority for Management and Regulation in Communications (ANCOM) decided. This is the second stage of decreasing the maximum thresholds for interconnection tariffs, after the previous stage in March.

Tariffs were regulated after research carried out in 2011 by ANCOM, which found that all the 51 suppliers of access to a landline telephone network active in Romania had significant power over the market. ANCOM asked these operators to respect maximum tariffs for interconnection. Revenues obtained by landline operators from termination services for voice calls – covered by interconnection tariffs – were of EUR 50 million in 2011, or 1.5 percent of the value of the total telecom market in Romania. The electronic communication market reached EUR 3.5 billion in 2011. Romania had 4.6 million landlines at the end of 2011, up 4 percent on 2010, and 4.04 million landline subscribers . The penetration rate for fixed telephony was at 54 percent of households, while the traffic via landlines was of 6 billion minutes in 2011. editor@romania-insider.com