Increasing the number of Internet connections through 3G and 4G/LTE, increasing the use of roaming services and the emergence of “more generous” offers for free national minutes and mobile internet are the main trends to seize the telecom market in 2015.
“In the first six months of this year, the total number of active mobile internet connections increased by 28 per cent to 14,4 million. The positive trend will continue in 2015, which will draw also the increase of the penetration rate of mobile internet services, which at the end of June stood at 52,1 per cent. Also, due to lower costs for calls made within the EU, we will see an increase in the use of roaming services, as happened in the first part of this year, when voice traffic rose up to 32 per cent to 241 million minutes,” said the president of ANCOM, Catalin Marinescu, according to Mediafax.
According to ANCOM data, the number of fixed and mobile internet connections reached 18,3 million at the end of June, registering an increase of up to 22,8 per cent compared to the end of June 2013, amid the advance of mobile connections by 28,5 per cent, to 14,4 million, according to data announced by the Regulatory Authority in Communications (ANCOM).
“In case of broadband mobile internet, the number of connections has registered a jump from 8,2 million active connections in mid-2013 to 10,5 million in mid-2014, which means, in average, over one million connections in addition for every six months,” said Marinescu.
Regarding the access method, 89 per cent of mobile connections were accessed through the mobile phone/smartphone, while the remaining 11 per cent were connections through modems/cards or USB.
“I forecast that the telecom operators will continue to propose clients increasingly generous offers, with more mobile internet included, with more national minutes included. At the same time, due to the decrease of the average price, fixed-mobile convergent offers will be powered also by intelligent terminals and tablets,” said Marinescu.