Romtelecom and Cosmote, two of the biggest telecom operators in Romania - which have the same majority shareholder - have announced cuts to fees charged to clients for calls between the two networks, with the decision targeting the 7 million clients of Cosmote and Romtelecom's almost 3 million users of fixed telephony. The two companies held by OTE (Greece) and Deutsche Telekom (Germany) are launching an attack on their rivals at a time when companies and individuals could take new cost-cutting measures in the context of the recession and of the austerity measures announced by the government.

In a first stage, Romtelecom clients who place a call in the Cosmote network will be charged the same amount as if they were another Romtelecom fixed telephony client. In addition, Romtelecom clients who have calls plans with included minutes in the network will be able to use the minutes for phone calls to Cosmote clients.

"Depending on our clients' consumption habits, they can save up to 30% of their monthly bills," said Yorgos Ioannidis, CEO of Romtelecom.

After about a month, the same pricing strategy will be applied for Cosmote clients: calls to Romtelecom will be charged the same amount as calls within the network, with Cosmote clients to be able to use the included minutes for calls to Romtelecom's fixed telephony network, as well.

"We will serve the biggest telecom community in terms of mobile and fixed voice services," said in turn Stefanos Theocaropoulos, CEO of Cosmote Romania.

Romtelecom and Cosmote, two of the biggest telecom operators in Romania - which have the same majority shareholder - have announced cuts to fees charged to clients for calls between the two networks, with the decision targeting the 7 million clients of Cosmote and Romtelecom's almost 3 million users of fixed telephony. The two companies held by OTE (Greece) and Deu