Orange plans 3G spend

Orange Romania says it plans to invest EUR170 million in 2007, with a large part of the total going towards the expansion of its 3G operations. The company’s CEO, Richard Moat, told local news portal Nine O’Clock: ‘The adoption of 3G-based services on the Romanian market will be made gradually with the business segment as the most interested segment in the first place for the higher speed access to internet, intranet and e-mails. The private users segment and the youth especially will be mainly attracted with the better quality content offered by the operators.’ Orange Romania added a million net new customers last year and ended 2006 with just over eight million subscribers, ahead of second-placed Vodafone which claimed 7.72 million. Orange launched 3G at the start of last year and the high speed network had 131,000 subscribers by the end of September.