According to Romania’s Business Review, Orange Romania intends to plough EUR110 million (USD155.5 million) into network expansion projects during 2011, increasing 3G coverage in rural areas and simplifying customer experience. CEO Thierry Millet confirmed that the investment forms the first stage of a EUR500-600 million plan, to be undertaken by end-2015. However, the CEO noted that the exact volume of investments will depend on how the company is affected by external factors, such as the erosion of financial indicators in the telecoms market and pending regulatory decisions. Millet confirmed that 2011’s mooted investment represents a higher figure than was invested in both 2009 and 2010.
Madalina Suceveanu, chief technology officer at Orange Romania, commented: ‘This project will start in June this year in the Ardeal (Transylvania) area and it will be completed at the end of 2012. We will work with our partners Huawei, Alcatel and Cisco who will help us implement the internet speed which will be 14.4Mbps. What is more, the technology we will implement in this project is LTE ready’. Suceveanu also hinted that Orange intends to explore the option of sharing infrastructure with its rivals in a bid to improve operational efficiency.