RCS & RDS, Orange, Telekom has been negotiating for a very long time the most complicated sale in the telecommunications market in Romania to date, but everything could be to the disadvantage of all Romanians, unfortunately. The sale of Telekom to RCS & RDS and Orange will massively reconfigure the telecommunications market in our country, because a very large operator will disappear completely, and more than 9 million customers will be distributed to other companies.
RCS & RDS does not want to take Telekom's customers, probably in the hope that it will not have to explain to the European Commission about this, but probably also because it knows that this could cancel its chances of acquisition. Orange wants all Telekom customers on the fixed services side, along with all the infrastructure, but just like in the case of RCS & RDS, this could substantially reduce its chances of seeing its plans come to fruition.
The problem of Romanian customers in Telekom sales at RCS & RDS, Orange
RCS & RDS, Orange, Telekom will do their best to bring the transaction to a successful conclusion, but the ones who lose in this whole equation are the Romanians, who unfortunately remain without a very large weight that counterbalances the telecom market. The disappearance of Telekom from Romania will create a serious imbalance, and this is because the operator had lower prices than Vodafone and Orange for many services, pulling down prices for Romanian customers together with RCS & RDS.
RCS & RDS was, together with Teleom, a counterweight to Vodafone and Orange, both companies having some weaker services, from a qualitative point of view, but also lower prices, so they were alternatives for some Romanians. With the disappearance of Telekom, things get complicated, because the Romanians who want lower prices only have RCS & RDS as an alternative, so the competition is affected, and this could matter a lot in the decision of the Europeans.
RCS & RDS alone will not be too much competition for Orange and Vodafone, and the large number of customers attracted to porting by Telekom shows why it brings a great benefit to competition in Romania.
