Vodafone Romania S.A. is a

Romania Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern and Southeast Europe. It borders Ukraine to the north and east, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Bulgaria to the south, Moldova to ...

n telecommunications operator owned by

Vodafone Group Plc Vodafone Group Public Limited Company () is a British Multinational company, multinational telecommunications company. Its registered office and global headquarters are in Newbury, Berkshire, England. It predominantly operates Service (economic ...

. It launched in April 1997 as the first

GSM The Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) is a family of standards to describe the protocols for second-generation (2G) digital cellular networks, as used by mobile devices such as mobile phones and Mobile broadband modem, mobile broadba ...

network in Romania. Before acquisition by

, it was known as Connex, after which it was rebranded Connex-Vodafone and in April 2006, the Connex name was dropped, the operator being simply known as Vodafone Romania, aligning itself with the global Vodafone brand. Vodafone Romania is a wholly owned subsidiary of

, and is the seventh-largest Vodafone subsidiary in the world by number of subscribers. Vodafone became the majority stakeholder after it brought 79% of Mobifon's shares from Canadian company Telesystems International Wireless, which had been the previous majority shareholder. Furthermore, it recently acquired 5% of Mobifon's shares from Canadian Entrepreneur Elani Grobler. The operator is the main competitor of

Orange Orange most often refers to: *Orange (fruit), the fruit of the tree species '' Citrus'' × ''sinensis'' ** Orange blossom, its fragrant flower ** Orange juice *Orange (colour), the color of an orange fruit, occurs between red and yellow in the vi ...

for the 22.8 million active mobile telephony users in Romania. Connex, the ancestor of Vodafone Romania, held the largest number of subscribers, except the year 2000, until September 2004, when Orange edged ahead. The motto of Vodafone is ''Trăiește fiecare clipă'' (rendered in English by the company as Make the most of now, a more accurate translation would be "Live every moment"). Previous mottos were: ''Tu faci viitorul'' (You create the future) and ''Viitorul sună bine'' (The future sounds good).

Details

Subscriber numbers issued in Romania by Vodafone begin with the three-digit prefixes 072, 073 and 079, followed by a unique seven-digit combination. However, not all such numbers necessarily belong to Vodafone subscribers because of the number portability for mobile telephony networks. On November 2022, the latest auction for the 5G frequencies was completed. The frequencies that Vodafone gained are as follows: * 10 blocks of 10 MHz on the frequency zone of 3400-3800MHz * 2 blocks of 5 MHz on the frequency zone of 700MHz Vodafone was the second highest bidder for the frequencies spending up to 123 million euros. The 5G network became accessible Vodafone Romania subscribers in May 2019.

Brands of Vodafone

Vodafone Romania (and Connex before it) used numerous others brands. They include: *Xnet – an

internet service provider An Internet service provider (ISP) is an organization that provides a myriad of services related to accessing, using, managing, or participating in the Internet. ISPs can be organized in various forms, such as commercial, community-owned, no ...

, offering free unlimited dial-up for Connex mobile phone subscribers between 2000 and 2003. The brand is no longer used. *

myX Myx (, stylized as MYX or myx and pronounced as ''mix'') is a Philippine pay television channel based in Quezon City and owned by Creative Programs Inc., a subsidiary of ABS-CBN Corporation. The channel is targeted to youth audiences and pri ...

– Romania's first mobile portal. Also used by the company for a short-lived venture in the fashion industry. The portal has been relabeled as Vodafone Live. * myBanking – Mobile Banking service * myDomain –

domain name In the Internet, a domain name is a string that identifies a realm of administrative autonomy, authority, or control. Domain names are often used to identify services provided through the Internet, such as websites, email services, and more. ...

service * homemade.ro –

video sharing An online video platform (OVP) enables users to upload, convert, store, and play back video content on the Internet, often via a private server structured, large-scale system that may generate revenue. Users will generally upload video content vi ...

website

History

* 1998:

SMS Short Message Service, commonly abbreviated as SMS, is a text messaging service component of most telephone, Internet and mobile device systems. It uses standardized communication protocols that let mobile phones exchange short text messages, t ...

services introduced * 1999: Xnet Internet service introduced; High Speed Circuit Switched Data (HSCSD) technology introduced; mobile phones running on Connex donated to ambulance service of

Oradea Oradea (, , ; ; ) is a city in Romania, located in the Crișana region. It serves as the administrative county seat, seat of Bihor County and an economic, social, and cultural hub in northwestern Romania. The city lies between rolling hills on ...

(first Romanian company to do so) * 2000: WAP mobile Internet services launched * 2001:

, Romania's first mobile portal launched; SMS services such as dating, ringtones and logos are introduced;

GPRS General Packet Radio Service (GPRS), also called 2.5G, is a mobile data standard on the 2G cellular communication network's Global System for Mobile Communications, global system for mobile communications (GSM). Networks and mobile devices wit ...

service launched * 2002:

prepaid introduced; first company in Europe to introduce

World Wide Number The world is the totality of entities, the whole of reality, or everything that exists. The nature of the world has been conceptualized differently in different fields. Some conceptions see the world as unique, while others talk of a "plu ...

(WWN) facilities; mobile banking introduced in cooperation with

Banca Comerciala Romana Banca may refer to: Places * Bangka Island, an island lying east of Sumatra, part of Indonesia * Banca, Pyrénées-Atlantiques, a commune of the Pyrénées-Atlantiques ''département'', France * Banca, Tasmania, a locality in Tasmania, Australia * ...

(BCR). * 2003: myBanking introduced – a service in collaboration with Raiffeisen Bank, for customers to pay Connex bills and do banking automatically * 2003: Connex Meeting Call introduced. * 2005: 3G services based on W-CDMA introduced, giving way to video telephony and broadband internet via mobile phone. * 2005: In partnership with

RIM Rim may refer to: *Rim (basketball), the hoop through which the ball must pass **Breakaway rim, a sprung basketball rim * Rim (coin), the raised edge which surrounds the coin design * Rim (crater), extending above the local surface *Rim (firearms) ...

, Connex launches the second

BlackBerry BlackBerry is a discontinued brand of handheld devices and related mobile services, originally developed and maintained by the Canadian company Research In Motion (RIM, later known as BlackBerry Limited) until 2016. The first BlackBerry device ...

service in Romania. * 2005:

Liliana Solomon Liliana is derived from the Latin word 'lilium' or 'lilion', both mean 'lily' in English. Due to this, the name means "pure" and "innocent". The name is generally found in North America, though it is more common in Italian, Spanish and Portuguese ...

is named CEO of Connex. * 1 November 2005: The name of the operator is changed to Connex-Vodafone. * 27 April 2006: The name of the operator is changed to Vodafone Romania. * 2018: Vodafone acquires

Liberty Global Liberty Global Ltd. is a British-Dutch-American multinational telecommunications company domiciled in Bermuda, with headquarters in London, Amsterdam and Denver. Its respective legal names are Liberty Global Holdings Limited (UK), Liberty Glo ...

's Romanian operations,

UPC Romania UPC Romania was a telecommunications company in Romania, which provided cable television, broadband internet and fixed telephony to approximately 1 million customers. On July 31, 2019, Vodafone acquired the company and it was merged into Vodafo ...

Radio frequency summary

The following is a list of known frequencies which Vodafone employs in Romania:

References

External links