It started in 2000 with Astral buying Kappa and the last deal announced is Astral's intention to acquire CVR. Here is the link to the details of the deal and also to some industry data - it is interesting to note that it is becoming a race in two (Astral and RDS) with a third standing by. This third player is quiet - I firstly heard about it this morning - it is the American UPC and apparently they have about 10% of the market. An updated profile of UPC Romania here.

On the short term I don't think this consolidation is good news for the consumers since the focus on providing an integrated package (internet-telephony-cable tv) will be made in the detriment of the consumer service. For internet services I am using both RDS (at home) and Astral (at work) and I can say that the way they treat their clients is not the best and I am not the only one saying that. Also this duopoly makes the value offer quite expensive - my brother was mentioning that he can get much better deals at the same money in New York. But that is a competitive and mature market where internet has become a commodity - in Romania perhaps just cable tv may be considered as one. And even though now it is charged at a premium clearly the stake for the Romanian communication industry is (will be) the data transmission services as internet has started to become an enabler for the other two. It is just a matter of time until it is widespread and it is widely dependent on the increasing PC usage at home -- most of the 2.2 million Romanians use internet from work.