Orange recently offered, through the international deputy director of the telecommunications group, an explanation for the decision to buy the fixed services division of Telekom Romania, a transaction definitely not very cheap. He stated that although Orange would be number 1 in Europe in the fixed-mobile converged services segment, in Romania the local company has traditionally focused only on mobile telephony services, which is not quite enough for them.
A few years ago, Orange signed an agreement with Telekom to use their fixed telecommunications infrastructure to be able to offer internet, television and fixed telephony services, which brought an increase in the number of customers. Considering that Telekom wants to leave Romania, those from Orange would have ended up in the situation of being left without the fixed infrastructure, if they had not bought the division of the German group, and the buyer would not have wanted to offer them access to it .
Orange buys Telekom for fixed infrastructure
Orange would have ended up in the situation of not being able to offer its customers those fixed services that it keeps promoting if that Telekom buyer had refused to give it access, which would have seriously affected its activity. If we are to be honest, the purchase of Telekom's fixed services division is something that Orange was more obliged to do in order not to end up in the situation of having no way to offer converged services to its customers, remaining the only operator without them.
Orange most likely would have wanted the current situation to have continued, that is, to take advantage of Telekom's infrastructure based on an agreement, not to spend hundreds of millions or billions of euros to buy an additional "headache". Orange will not only have to buy the fixed division of Telekom, but also to maintain it, and this brings additional complications compared to the current situation, but when you have no choice but to buy, the decision is very clear.
Orange will not buy Telekom too soon, and this is because the Romanian Government has not yet made a decision regarding the approval of the transaction, and then the European Commission will have to do so, so everything could take 1 year.
