Richard Moat, CEO Orange Romania, estimates the company will have around 250,000 users of EDGE/3G services by the end of 2006, while the breakeven point for this business segment should be reached within three years. According to Orange   Romania officials, there are about 100,000 users of EDGE at the moment.

 In order to rapidly increase its 3G customer base, Orange   Romania will provide UMTS services to all existing customers, including those using pre-paid cards. 3G services are available with a monthly fee of US$28, including 180 free minutes for national voice calls and 18 minutes of video calls in Romania, as well as 18 MB data transfers, an e-mail mobile account (10 Mb), and access to Organizer and Mail Manager (50 Mb). Otherwise, Orange   Romania customers can activate the "video" option, offered for US$8 per month and providing 30 minutes of free video calls, 30 free MMS and unlimited access to live TV. The tariff of a video call in the Orange network ranges between US$0.2 and US$0.22 per minute. Orange Romania offers its services to business clients, including its data card Business Everywhere, providing mobile Internet access via GPRS, EDGE and 3G, to be connected to the laptop PCMCIA port. 

Video calls between Orange   Romania and Vodafone Romania customers will be possible after the two operators conclude an interconnection agreement, to be signed during the summer. For the time being Orange Romania has 3G roaming agreements with celcos in UK, France, Austria, Poland and Belgium, the first international video call being made between Romania and France by Romanian minister for communications Zsolt Nagy in Paris at Orange headquarters and Richard Moat, CEO Orange Romania in Bucharest. 

Orange Romania is currently the market leader in Romanian mobile telephony by sold SIMs (7.1 million SIMs sold within a 14.1 million market), as well as by turnover - $239 million in 1Q06, $870 million in 2005.

Romania intends to offer another two 3G licences this year, via a "beauty contest" to start soon this month and probably to end in September. Every licence costs US$35 million, payable in six instalments. Cosmote Romania, 70% owned by Greece's Cosmote, and Telemobil have already announced their intention to compete for a 3G licence, while other competitors with a European approach are expected to compete for a Romanian 3G licence. 

The first 3G services in Romania were launched by Vodafone Romania in late April 2005, also using UMTS technology, while by the end of1Q06 there were 135,249 users, the Vodafone 3G network covering 22 cities. While Vodafone Romania launched specific 3G services, Orange Romania's approach for high-speed mobile data is different, adopting EDGE (230kb/s), as an intermediate and cautious step, and (since this month) "3G islands" in the most important cities. While EDGE coverage is expanding very rapidly, expected to have the same coverage as 2G (about 97% of the population) this year, "3G islands" will be increased during the time. 

Another provider of high-speed mobile data in Romania is Telemobil, owned by UK 's Inquam (50% owned by Qualcomm) and using CDMA450 technology and providing data transfer up to 1.4Mb/s via EV-DO.