Hungary’s dominant telecoms operator Magyar Telekom (T-Com) has announced it will launch the country’s first combined landline-mobile subscriber package on 16 January. The incumbent, which has merged with its wireless arm T-Mobile, is keen to enter the potentially money-spinning segment for combined telephony packages. According to reports from the Hungarian News Agency, T-Com’s inaugural product requires customers to pay a monthly fee, in return for which they can select several mobile or landline numbers of other subscribers to the package, and then call those numbers for free.
In a separate story, Magyar Telekom (T-Com) yesterday announced it had signed an agreement with the European Investment Bank (EIB) – through Deutsche Telekom International Finance – for a HUF47.4 billion (USD229.4 million) loan to finance its broadband network rollout programme. The company aims to expand its broadband network and boost its subscribers to 600,000 by the end of 2006; it had 250,368 high speed internet subscribers at 30 June 2005. The loan runs until January 2013 and has a two-year grace period. T-Com will pay back the debt in five equal instalments.