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ANCOM has verified the coverage of voice services in Romania
27.08.2018
During January-July 2018, ANCOM carried out an extensive campaign for measuring the national coverage of voice services, conducting measurements in 12,786 localities inhabited by more than 19.8 million of the 20.1 million people in Romania. “ANCOM has carried out this measurement campaign in order to verify the extent to which mobile telephony operators comply with the obligation to ensure voice service coverage in areas inhabited by at least 98% of Romania’s population, as undertaken by licence. The results of the voice coverage measurement campaign are as follows: Orange Romania - 97.56% of the population, Telekom Romania Mobile Communications - 96.8% of the population and Vodafone Romania - 97.80% of the population. None of the mobile operators has reached the service coverage provided by licence, therefore – considering the degree of compliance achieved by each of them – ANCOM applied contravention warnings to Orange Romania and to Vodafone Romania, respectively a RON 500,000 contravention fine to Telekom Romania Mobile Communications”, declared Sorin Grindeanu, President of ANCOM.
Measurement campaign
Measurements were performed in 12,786 localities, inhabited by 19,818,427 of the total population of Romania - 20,121,587 inhabitants, according to the population and housing census (National Institute of Statistics 2011).
Voice services coverage was calculated as the ratio between the sum of the population covered and the sum of the population measured. For each locality, the covered population was calculated as the ratio between the number of clusters in which the measured parameter values were higher than the minimum values imposed under the licenses and the total number of clusters measured, multiplied by the population of that locality. The sum of the population measured is calculated by summing up the population of the localities where measurements were performed.
Voice service coverage obligations
The obligation to provide voice services coverage in areas inhabited by at least 98% of Romania’s population, through one’s own wireless access network, by 5 April 2017, is provided in the licenses for the use of frequencies awarded to the three operators already holding 2G or 3G networks in the 900 MHz and 1800 MHz bands at the time of the auction. These licenses were awarded in the 2012 spectrum auction.
For operators with 3G networks in the 2100 MHz band only, such as RCS & RDS, the same coverage obligation must be fulfilled by April 5, 2019.
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