Following the opening up of the fixed line market in January 2003, several new players have emerged, although Romtelecom‘s leading position is not yet threatended Market liberalization translated into decreasing tariffs for international calls and long – distance calls, while the still low competition segment of local calls faced tariff upsurge Several potential sizeable players are expected to enter the market within the next year, i.e. POSTelecom, SNR increasing the competition throughout the fixed telephony market Mobile telephony has been at the forefront of telecom market‘s development As the mobile telecom market is nearing its maturity phase (with slower client base growth and declining ARPU levels) competition is getting tougher between the 4 existent mobile operators Voice transmission services still dominate the market, although there is as clear trend towards bundled product packages wih increase value added 2005 will likely mark the entrance of 3G technology in the market The last period saw a clear consolidation trend following a significant M&A wave which is yet to have ended Reflecting the changes in customers‘ needs the complexity of data transmission services has increased spanning different technological solutions Mobile operators also target this segment by providing data transmission services and Internet access over mobile phones via 2.75 G or 2.5 G technologies The 2003 drop of the market was mainly due to lower tariffs in real terms as compared to 2002, as well as shrinking interconnection and fixed – to – mobile tariffs Moreover new players emerging after the opening up of the fixed line market led to decreases in tariffs for international calls and subsequently long – distance calls In spite of the 2004 soar in tariffs for local calls, Romtelecom is likely to decrease these tariffs once competition makes way in the local calls segment as wel