DCS, or Digital Cable Systems, is a new mobile phone operator from Romania, the company is going to announce its mobile services on August 15. DCS has been active in Romania for a very long time, and until now it has offered cable television, fixed internet, or fixed telephony services under the AKTA brand, and starting next week, it will enter the mobile telephony market in Romania.
DCS will start selling service packages that include fixed telephony, mobile telephony, internet and cable television, the company basically competing with Dig Mobil and Telekom here. DCS was founded in 2005 through a merger of several cable companies, AKTA and Dial Telecom being born along the way, and at the moment it is not known under which brand the mobile phone services will be sold to customers.
DCS will become a virtual mobile operator, MNVO, and it will work through the Telekom network, so it will not have its own infrastructure. However, based on the agreement with Telekom, it will rent space in the mobile phone network, but also in the fiber optic network, so basically DCS will offer services of the same quality as those offered by Telekom, but most likely at similar prices, if not even slightly bigger.
DCS is the new mobile operator in Romania
DCS basically enters the mobile phone market through an operator that currently has a lot of problems due to poor infrastructure. It is, I think, impossible for DCS to have access to Orange's 4G network through the partnership with Telekom, so it is very possible that their services will be as bad as Telekom's, at least on the mobile telephony side.
DCS does not have its own infrastructure, so the main competition could be Digi Mobil, because the rest of the three big mobile operators seem to be too distant a target. DCS will not have the resources to do whatever it wants on the mobile phone market, but will be limited by what Telekom can offer, so it will be interesting to see what the quality of the services offered by this company will be.
DCS is not the first MNVO in the Romanian market, Frog doing something similar through Cosmote, and Lyca Mobile has also been active in our country for some time. DCS will have enough competition only from Lyca Mobile, so I don't think it will have a serious impact on the mobile telephony market in Romania, although it wouldn't hurt if there was a fifth telecom operator to reduce even more service prices.
