Cell phone gaps to be covered on five national roads in Q1 2011

All the gaps in cell phone service along five national roads will be filled in the first quarter of 2011, under a decision of the regulatory agency ANRCETI, Info-Prim Neo reports. The terms of the licenses granted to mobile telephony operators obliges them to ensure a 60-85% coverage of the respective territory with radio signal, including of the following roads: Chisinau – Leuseni; Chisinau – Bender; Chisinau – Balti; Balti – Chernivtsi (Ukraine). The tests run by the Agency and the National Center for Radio Frequencies show that the operators have exceeded these levels. However, on these national roads there were detected around 50 gaps. In the latter quarter of this year, the operator Orange Moldova filled six out of ten gaps existing on the respective territory, Moldcell two out of nine, and Moldtelecom seven out of thirty-one. Works are under way to cover the remaining 37 gaps, with operators promising that the task will be accomplished in the first quarter of the next year. Also in the first quarter, tests will be run to detect gaps on other nine major roads and measures will be undertaken to fill them. As of October 1, Orange Moldova had a coverage rate of 98.9% of the country's territory, Moldcell 97.3%, and Moldtelecom 97.0%.