Operator Source:More InformationSubscribe

Moldova Broadband Overview

Liberalisation was declared as one of the key factors for the development of the Moldovian telecommunications market in 2001, when the Ministry of Transportation and Communication adopted the National Strategy on Telecommunications. This Strategy highlighted the progressive de-monopolisation and creation of a free market by the end of 2003 as one of the main goals of the telecommunications sector reform. Consequently, the market was fully liberalised by 2004.

In 2006, the value of the telecommunications market grew by 23.5% to MLD 4.5 billion. This growth occurred mainly due to the increased number of service providers and users, deployment of broadband technologies and the improvement of service quality and range. In terms of revenue, fixed telephony had the highest share at 47.43% (down from 51.6% in 2005), followed by mobile telephony at 41.95% (up from 37.4%), and Internet access services at 4.36% (up from 3.6%). In 2006, the total investment into the market grew by 23.28%, reaching MLD 1,506 million with Moldtelecom being the major investor. However, only 5.46% of the total sector investment was directed into Internet access services.

In 2006, there were 9 license holders authorised to provide local fixed telephony services. In terms of revenues Moldtelecom had 97.4% of the market maintaining the leading position, while alternative operators – Arax-Impex, Telcom Technologies, Telemedia Group and a few others – shared the rest of the market.

The incumbent operator is the national telecommunications company Moldtelecom. It was founded in 1993 as a result of the restructuring of Moldova’s telecommunication sector. In 1999 Moldtelecom was reorganised into a Joined Stock Company, the state remaining its sole shareholder. Moldtelecom started offering ADSL services in November 2004 at speeds of up to 1024 Kbps. Currently, it offers fixed telephony, data transmission, IP-telephony, ISDN, VPN, wholesale Internet access and ADSL services with speeds up to 4096 Mbps.

Moldova has three GSM mobile operators, Voxtel (since April 2007 re-branded as Orange), Moldcell and Eventis Mobile, and one CDMA2000 operator (Moldtelecom). Eventis Mobile won the third GSM license in December 2006 and plans to launch its services by the end of 2007. Moldtelecom was granted its CDMA2000 mobile license for the 450MHz frequency spectrum in mid-2006. Since March 2007 it has been operating the network under the Unite brand, but controls only a tiny part of the market.

By the end of 2006, the number of mobile phone subscribers in Moldova grew by 268,000 to 1.35 million (representing 24.6 per cent growth). At the same time, Voxtel added 215,000 subscribers, while Moldcell added 53,300. Voxtel had a 64.38 % share of the market while Moldcell claimed the remaining 35.62 %. Mobile penetration increased to 39.56 per cent - up from 32.18 % a year ago.

Over the next five years, Moldcell plans to invest USD 55 million in its operations. Its main shareholder Fintur Holdings has already invested USD 74 million in Moldcell since Aprill 2000, when the company started its operations. In turn, Orange, a subsidiary of France Telecom, plans to invest USD 80 million in Voxtel over the next five years.