OREANDA-NEWS. On December 7 the National Regulatory Agency for Electronic Communications and Information Technology (ANRCETI) issued "Orange Moldova", first mobile operator in Moldova, two new licenses for the right to use radio frequencies in the 800 MHz and e900 MHz bands for the provision of terrestrial cellular mobile communications services. The licenses were handed to the Director General of "Orange Moldova", Ludmila Climoc, by ANRCETI Director, Grigore Varanita.

Orange Moldova obtained the two licenses, one for the use of 20 de MHz sub-band (2x10 MHz, FDD regime) in 800 MHz band and another for a 10 MHz sub-band (2x5 MHz, FDD regime) in e900 MHz band, as a result of the license auction held by ANRCETI on September 25 – November 23 2015, for the use of radio frequencies in 800, e900, 2100, 2600 and 3400 – 3800 MHz bands. Company Orange Moldova was designated by ANRCETI as winning bidder.

ANRCETI issued the licenses in accordance with the provisions of the Radio Frequency Spectrum Management Program for 2013 – 2020, approved by Government Decree no. 116 of 11.02.2013, with subsequent modifications. The licenses were granted after Orange Moldova paid to the state budget the MDL equivalent (252 million 203,8 thousand lei) of 11 million 905,2 thousand Euro – an amount representing the cumulative value of license fees for the frequencies in 800 and e900 MHz bands. The license fees were established by the Government Decree no. 316 of 02.06.2015.

The licenses acquired by Orange Moldova will be valid through November 5, 2029. According to ANRCETI estimations, once Orange Moldova acquired the licenses, the company’s spectrum portfolio increased by 18%.

After handing in the licenses, ANRCETI Director Grigore Varanita said that the newly-obtained frequencies provide the operator with additional opportunities for business and innovation, provide security of investment and more efficiency in spectrum use, while the consumers – with better coverage, higher data transfer rates, more better services at competitive prices.

Previously, in August 2014, Orange Moldova was awarded three licenses for the use of spectrum available in the 800, 900 and 1800 MHz bands (one license per block of frequencies in each of the three bands), for the provision of public electronic communications terrestrial cellular mobile networks and services. For those three licenses, the company paid to the state budget MDL equivalent of 25,5 million euro.