After the agreement of American group Verizon Communications, to buy the 45% stake owned by Vodafone in their joint-venture in the US, the market has began fretting over the rumors that British group Vodafone may acquire Liberty Global (UPC), the largest cable company in Europe. Following the deal between Verizon and Vodafone, which is scheduled to be completed in Q1 2014, the British Company would receive 130 billion dollars, of which 58.9 billion dollars in cash, which has given more credence to rumors among telecom analysts that Vodafone will try to enter the TV cable market by acquiring Liberty Global, owned by American billionaire John Malone. According to Denver Business Journal, John Malone would not turn down a convenient offer. Liberty Global is the largest cable company in Europe, with 25 million customers in 15 countries, including Romania.
* What would this deal mean for our country
Such a deal would cause even more turmoil on the Romanian communications market. There are currently three major competitors in the TV cable industry: RCS&RDS, which has approximately 3.5 million subscribers, UPC, with 1.3-1.5 million customers and Dolce, the service provided by Romtelecom, which has approximately 1.5 million customers. Recently, Orange entered the market segment, which launched its TV service in June this year. For now, the representatives of Orange, which is the largest mobile telephony operator, estimate that its service will have around 50,000 subscribers by the end of the year, but it is to be expected that by the end of the year, the company will develop its own TV stations, according to the model followed by Digi, (RCS-RDS) and Dolce. The acquisition of UPC by Vodafone would create the highest level of competition between the British company and RCS-RDS, as Romtelecom and Orange TV would be forced to find solutions to deal with the situation
