Telecom operators Orange and Vodafone will need more than a year to free up the 2.5 MHz of the 900 MHz band width in Romania, as demanded by the Romanian National Authority for Management and Regulation in Communications (ANCOM).

“This requirement to free the band in a year is almost technically impossible. It’s an extraordinary effort of reorganization and reconstruction of Orange Romania’s technical architecture. We have 4,000 antennae and a rethinking of the architecture must be made in a period longer than one year,” said Dorin Odiatiu, marketing manager Orange Romania.

ANCOM recently decided that telecom companies Orange and Vodafone will have to free a portion of the 900 MHz band by the end of 2012, but this would not affect the continuity of their services within said band. The freed up band widths will be up for sale in 2012. Local authorities said that the measure came after market analysis showed that Romanian telecom company RCS & RDS is at a competitive disadvantage to the operators that have a spectrum in the 900 MHz band.

Irina Popescu, irina.popescu@romania-insider.com

(photo source: Photoxpress)