Nearly 800 isolated localities in Romania to be connected to internet this year

Newsroom 15/01/2015 | 15:19

By the end of this year, a total of 783 isolated localities in Romania will be connected to internet as part of the RO-NET project entitled “Building A National Broadband Infrastructure in Poor Areas, With Structural Funds,” according to a press release from the Ministry for Information Society.

The ministry has been rolling out this project starting December 18, 2014.

The RO-NET project is co-financed through the European Regional Development Fund and amounts to RON 377,38,279. The non-reimbursable financial aid amounts to approximately RON 252,281,872.

The project will be developed over an 11-month time frame and aims to develop a broadband national infrastructure to ensure the provision of electronic communication services across poor isolated areas which at this moment do not benefit from high-speed internet coverage.

RO-NET will cover 783 from a total number of 2,268 localities identified following a feasibility survey. These localities were called “white areas” because telecom operators had no intention of investing there.

The project will reduce the digital gap between the rural and urban areas, and cover with broadband a total of 130,000 households with approximately 400,000 inhabitants, around 8,500 enterprises and 2,800 public institutions.The new network will span across approximately 4,843 kilometers. 

“With the expansion of the broadband network, we are encouraging economic growth in the localities targeted by the project. We can only discuss the reduction of the digital gap between urban and rural areas, digital literacy and better penetration of e-government services in strong connection with the development of the RO-NET project. This is a highly important project for the Ministry for Information Society and also a priority for the European Commission, which approved it at the end of last year,” said Sorin Grindeanu (in picture), minister for Information Society.

The two operators appointed to implement the project following a tender organized by the Romanian state are Telekom Communications and Telekom Mobile, which will implement the backhaul infrastructure by the end of the year, as well as ensure the infrastructure maintenance.

The infrastructure will remain public property and will be available at wholesale level for any provider interested to supply broadband internet to inhabitants in those areas.

Otilia Haraga

 

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