Vodafone Romania


Vodafone Romania S.A. is a Romanian telecommunications operator owned by Vodafone Group Plc. It launched in April 1997 as the first GSM network in Romania.
Before acquisition by Vodafone Group Plc, 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 Vodafone Group Plc, 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 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. Previous mottos were: Tu faci viitorul and Viitorul sună bine.

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 used numerous others brands. They include:
Image:Vodafone.Iasi-Romania.JPG|right|thumb|200px|A former "Connex Center" rebranded as Vodafone in Iaşi, Romania.
The following is a list of known frequencies which Vodafone employs in Romania:
MCCMNCFrequencyBand numberProtocol ClassNotes
22601900 MHz8GSM/GPRS/EDGE2G
226011800 MHz3GSM/GPRS/EDGE2G
22601900 MHz8UMTS/HSPA/HSPA+ 3G
226012100 MHz1UMTS/HSPA/HSPA+/DC-HSDPA 3G
22601800 MHz20LTE 4GDownlink speeds can be up to 225Mbit/s through CA_3A_20A
226011800 MHz3LTE 4GDownlink speeds can be up to 225Mbit/s through CA_3A_20A
226012100 MHz1LTE 4G