Telecommunications in Moldova

Telecommunications in Moldova are maintained at a relatively high performance level. Because Moldova is a small country, telecommunications companies managed to achieve good coverage in both wired and wireless communications infrastructure. Landline is available in most settlements, however mobile phone popularity has vastly increased in recent years. Mobile communications infrastructures are fairly well developed but suffer from high prices, nonetheless the amount of mobile subscriptions is growing very fast compared to the landline. As far as the Internet is concerned, Moldova has one of the best wired Internet connections in the world as well as one of the cheapest in $ per Mbit.

Landline

After the break of the Soviet Union Moldova's telecommunications facilities were in a very poor condition. In 1990 Moldova had an average of 11 telephones per 100 inhabitants and there were more than 200,000 unfilled orders for telephone installations. The situation didn't progress much as only around 24,000 new lines were installed by 1994. Only after 1995 the state owned Moldtelecom began to upgrade their lines and stations. When in 1999 Moldtelecom became a JSC the company began a rapid upgrade process of all of their equipment and installations across the country. In 2000 around 440,000 new lines were installed and the overall power of telephone stations was increased to 645,000 numbers, at that time the average number of telephones per 100 inh. was around 16. The upgrade process to digital has also sped up and in 2008 around 83% of all stations were digital, for example in 1993 only 4% of all stations were digital. Currently all stations in the country are digital and the number of installed lines is 1,171,300 with around 33 telephones per 100 inh. In recent years however the general trend was the decrease in total number of landline subscriptions, after reaching its peak of 1,222,400 subscriptions in Q1 2014.

Currently Moldtelecom is the dominant provider in this industry holding around 89% of the market share, the rest are shared between some ISP's who provide triple play options to their customers, however most if not all of them rent lines from Moldtelecom.

Until recently an open dialing plan was used but as of April 1, 2012 Moldova has implemented a closed dialing plan on all of its territory.

Landline Subscriptions and Penetration level. (2020)

Number of Landline Subscriptions - 1,027,689
Penetration Level - 38.9%

Market Structure by Number of Users. (2020)

Mobile Subscriptions and Penetration level. (2020) The overall infrastructure is well developed which allows many users to experience good quality services throughout the country. However, despite high speed availability and cheap prices the penetration level is quite low compared to many EU or CIS countries. At the end of 2015 there were 80 registered ISP's in the country with the majority being local or regional only with only few offering their services throughout the country. Moldtelecom and StarNet are country's leading providers sharing around 86% of the market. The remaining 14% are shared between other ISP's like SunCommunications, Arax Communications and others. All ISP's that offer their services across the country have their headquarters located in the capital city of Chişinău.

Moldtelecom is the only ISP that offers its services throughout the country on a wide scale, StarNet follows offering its services in several large towns and regional centers. Other ISP's are limited to their town or region.

Since 2008 all mobile carriers offer 3G HSDPA Internet access throughout the country. LTE is also available in Chişinău and select regions and is provided by all carriers. While Moldtelecom and StarNet are major players on the "wired Internet access" market, Orange Moldova, Moldcell and Unité are major players on "mobile Internet access" market. However, because the general state of the mobile market in the country is rather poor the gap between prices and quality for wired and mobile Internet is extremely high.

After the War of Transnistria in early 1990s Transnistrian government denied access of operation for many Moldavian based companies on its territory including telecommunications companies. As such the only major ISP's in that area are local IDC or Interdnestrcom (Интерднестрком) and LinkService, both operate only on Transnistrian territory.

The most popular wired Internet access technology is FTTx with about 72% of the market share as of 2020, xDSL comes second with about 19% of the market share. Average download speed throughout the country is estimated to be around 120 Mbit/s according to Ookla Net Metrics. In Chişinău and some regional centers speeds as high as 1 Gbit/s are easily available through FTTx.

Number of Broadband Subscriptions. (2020)

Wired: The industry didn't really change much and only after the fall of the USSR was when the television industry in the country really started to gain momentum. One of the first cable companies to begin their operation in the country was EuroCable which began its operation shortly after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the company offered cable television to its customers with multiple local and foreign channels. EuroCable remained the dominant cable television provider until the mid 1990s when it was bought by SunCommunications which merged it with its own service and re-branded it into SunTV. Because EuroCable and later SunTV began very early they gathered a large subscription base and remain the dominant cable television provider to this day offering their services in several large towns in the country, although this might soon change as Moldtelecom is rapidly gaining momentum. During the 2000s many other Chişinău based cable television providers such as Satellit, Delta and Alfa emerged offering similar services as SunTV. In 2015 there were 83 registered television providers. In 2007 Arax Communications launched its own cable television network called Zebra TV which became the first digital network in the country, SunTV followed launching its own digital network later that year. Until recently accessing television was only possible via cable but in 2011 StarNet and Moldtelecom launched their separate IPTV services in Chişinău and other towns offering multiple channels in both SD and HD qualities. Local broadcasting has remained fairly undeveloped since the time it was first launched although progress towards better quality is quite rapid with most local channels hoping to go fully digital in the near future.

Subscriptions and Penetration level. (2020)

Fixed telephony penetration - 32.2% (2017)
Mobile telephony penetration - 125.6% (2017)
Wired Broadband penetration - 16.5% (2017)
Mobile Broadband subscriptions - 2,430,078 (2017)
Mobile Broadband penetration - 68,4% (2017)
Internet Service Providers (ISP's) - 80 (2015)