Representatives of three important telephony companies in Romania announced in a joint press conference on Tuesday they would sue the National Authority for the Communications Regulation-ANRC and would complain at the European Commission unless ANRC abandons a project that postpones the reduction for interconnection tariffs for mobile telephony services.

“Despising attitude”, “breaking the duopoly”, “the prime minister must intervene”, unbiased attitude” are some of the phrases used by Romtelecom, Cosmote and Telemobil (the operator of Zapp mobile services) in a vitriolic message against the ANRC today.

The three companies thus reacted to an ANRC public opinion last week that interconnection charges for linking other services to the two major mobile operators in the country, Orange and Vodafone, should not be reduced until a later date.

And the three companies called on PM Calin Popescu Tariceanu to intervene in favour of a right application of ANRC rules on interconnection charges.

Vodafone and Orange are currently holding a joint 95% mobile telephony market share in Romania, with cumulated income of about two billion USD in 2005.