The local market of pre-paid mobile phone card users - which amounts to over 15 million active sim cards at the end of last year - has in the past three years been the scene of one of the most spectacular and aggressive commercial fights among Orange, Vodafone and Cosmote - the biggest players on the mobile communications market. In just three years' time, the number of minutes and SMSes offered to card users has risen more than 15 times, while fees have remained more or less the same: from around 200 on-net minutes and SMSes offered ahead of the 2007 winter holidays, to somewhere between 3,000 to 5,000 on net minutes at present. How can these aggressive changes in the offers of the three players be explained? The regulations introduced in the past few years, which encouraged competition among mobile phone operators, have played a key part in the emergence of such offers, says Cătălin Marinescu, president of the Regulatory Communications Authority (ANCOM). "The offers launched by mobile and fixed telephony operators are the result of market competition, which has been promoted and encouraged by ANCOM through the measures taken over the course of time, from the smooth authorisation process for providers through to regulating interconnection fees and liberalising the GSM band," says Marinescu, adding that the introduction of phone number portability, which allows users to change network without losing their number, played an important part on the mobile communications market.

The local market of pre-paid mobile phone card users - which amounts to over 15 million active sim cards at the end of last year - has in the past three years been the scene of one of the most spectacular and aggressive commercial fights among Orange, Vodafone and Cosmote - the biggest players on the mobile communications market. In just three years' time, the number of