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Telecom .IT: Ro-Net project under which 783 rural communities to receive broadband internet service by the end of 2016
The Ro-Net project under which 783 rural communities are supposed to receive broadband internet service will be completed by the end of 2016 and next, solutions must be found to cover the areas left blank, Catalin Marinescu, president of the National Authority for Communications Management and Regulation (ANCOM) told Agerpres in an interview.
"Projects in more than 100 communities have been completed so far under Ro-Net (...) I think the Ro-Net project will be completed by the end of this year. Whereas it started based on a survey conducted in 2012 for mapping the 'blank areas', a part thereof identified as such back then have been meanwhile covered by network operators, without the state's support. Practically, demand pushed for the development of those networks. In 2016 we also plan to inventory Romania's blank areas and update our map. Anyway, the list of the blank areas is posted on our website, with the request addressed to operators that, in the event they develop networks in one of these areas, they should notify us so that we remove the respective community from the list," Marinescu said.
The ANCOM president said that works are underway for the transposition into national law of Directive 61 that will simplify relationships between operators and local authorities and will implicitly cut red tape.
According to Marinescu, "there are currently three complementary network development projects, so that internet service be provided to all the areas where broadband internet service cannot be deployed."
The ministry in charge announced in mid-January 2015 the start of the Ro-Net project worth an aggregate of 377.8 ml lei and co-funded through the European Regional Development Fund with 252.28 ml lei.
The roughly 4,900 km long distribution network should have initially been set in place by December 2015.
Telekom Communications and Telekom Mobile are the two operators designed to implement the project following the tender organized by the Ministry for Information Society.
In early November 2014, the European Commission approved a financial contribution of about 85.6 million euros for the Ro-Net project that will provide with broadband internet 783 communities identified as "blank areas".