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Moldova - Market Intelligence Report
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Market Intelligence Reports provide an invaluable mix of vital market data and background information, including telecoms regulation. Moldova's telecommunications sector is dominated by state-owned fixed-line operator, Moldtelecom, which served 941,500 telephone subscribers at the end of June 2006 (approximately 28 lines per 100 population). Some degree of liberalisation is evident, with 42 alternative operators authorised to offer fixed-line local telephony services at the end of June 2006 (latest data). However, only six of these were active at that time and, as a reseller of network capacity, the telecommunications arm of national rail operator SC Calea Ferata can hardly be said to pose much of a threat (although it did account for 0.5% of all fixed lines at the end of June 2006, with all others accounting for less than 0.1%). The mobile communications market is similarly lacking in competition; it is currently shared between two GSM cellular operators, Voxtel and Moldcell. A third GSM licence was supposedly issued to Moldtelecom in 2003, mainly to tempt potential strategic investors ahead of a privatisation that has yet to materialise. It has since transpired that Moldtelecom does not have a GSM licence and that a third GSM 900/1800 licence will be tendered at the end of 2006. An attempt was made in 2005 to issue new CDMA licences, but the tender was called off so that the technical terms of the licences could be revised. In the meantime, Moldtelecom appears to have been allowed to offer a CDMA-based service at least seven months before receiving an appropriate licence (June 2006). There is, however, a great deal of activity in the data and informatics market, with a total of 680 licensees registered at the end of June 2006 (although it should be noted that very few of these were active at that time and most were service providers rather than network operators). It is here that Moldtelecom faces its most potent threat, in the form of VoIP operators (although Moldtelecom is itself the largest VoIP operator of all). There were 127 VoIP operators licensed at the end of 2005, of which only 17 were active and, of that number, just two were operating their own networks. During 2005, the number of broadband connections increased by around 272.4%; this was principally due to the takeup of ADSL. At the end of 2005, broadband accounted for 17.0% of dedicated data/Internet connections, up from 13.2% in 2004. All remaining connections were based on narrowband technology. According to data published by the National Regulatory Agency for Telecommunications and Informatics (ANRTI), the value of all information and communications technology (ICT) services provided in Moldova totalled ML3,639 million in 2005, representing a year-on-year increase of 36.8%. By comparison, GDP had grown by 8.3% during 2005 to ML34,657 million. Thus, ICT services' share of GDP in 2005 amounted to 10.5%, compared to 7.5% in 2004.
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