Published: 15.06 Europe/London, March 29, 2011

The Romanian incumbent telco Romtelecom has signed an agreement with Digital Cable Systems (DCS) to buy the latter’s AKTA Satelit DTH platform.

The total price of the deal will depend on the number of subscribers the platform has and Romtelecom has also notified the Competition Council about the takeover, which will only go ahead once it receives its approval.

Romtelecom, which is backed the Greece’s OTE and iultimately Deutsche Telekom, already operates a DTH platform named Dolce that has close to one million subscribers.

Furthermore, only earlier this month it signed an agreement with the DTH Television Group to buy the DTH platform Boom TV.

That deal, too, has been referred to the Competition Council.

DCS, which is backed by AIG, also has a cable business operating under the AKTA name. It had 180,000 subscribers at the end of 2010, while AKTA Satelit claimed 70,000.

Should both deals receive the Competition Council’s approval, Romania’s DTH market will be reduced from five to three platforms, with UPC’s Focus Sat going head to head with RCS&RDS’s Digi and Romtelecom’s Dolce/AKTA/Boom TV.

Significantly, DCS would hold on to its cable interests in a market in which RCS&RDS may soon buy UPC.