The two main Romanian ISPs are playing intelligently for smoothing the VOIP way and building a market. Or undermining Romtelecom's business model (the local and only fixed phone provider) which seems to be caught in inertia without a coherent play for at least building some sustainable business.
How's that? On the data transmission front Romtelecom is stuck with the ISDN offer or Artelecom's low profile play. On the mobile front Cosmorom is a dead horse for years now. (I wasn't even able to find a webpage or something about what they are up to these days :)) On the fixed phone services - the substitutes are obviously the mobile phones which are more attractive (big bets made on this market) and now the VOIP players, both disrupting drivers of Romtelecom's value proposition. The only thing that Romtelecom's users seem to be locked in is actually the phone number (which sooner or later - perhpas later in Romania given the demographics - will change to a username or IP) and the inertia of some people who are not easily to adapt to change (ya know, all those computers and the internet thing). And it may take a while for them to get things right, but I wouldn't underestimate the willingness to learn/adapt to new stuff (even though it involves technology) versus profiting from a compelling a value proposition. And relying on the users inability of understanding other offerings basically seems to be Romtelecom's play.
Interestingly enough, both main Romanian ISPs (Astral and RDS) are offering the free voip minutes as a component bundled with data services. And those minutes help in differentiating the value propositions. And while the strategy seems to be right the execution is far from perfect. Unbundling and going for naked internet is exactly what I am looking for in the future, the small niche players are already waking up. As for the voip, my guess is that it's going to become a revenue driver sooner rather than later for the local ISPs, actually these days it's not quite uncommon that I am talking to my friends by Skype when deciding to go out at the pub. :)
