The Romanian Communications Market Follows the European Rising Trend

Thursday, September 2, 2004, the President of the National Regulatory Authority for Communications, Ion Smeeianu, together with the Vice President of the institution, Alexandrina Hirtan, took part in “The Fifth Debate Session on the Long Term Development Strategy of Romania – Orizont 2025”, organised under the high patronage of the Romanian Presidency.

During the section dedicated to telecommunications and postal services, the President of ANRC held a presentation on the “European Regulations in the Communications Sector”, highlighting the necessity that the regulations take into account the IT&C convergence and draw upon the social and economic situation on the market, in order to successfully face the horizon of 2025.

Romania, as well as the whole world, is undergoing rapid modernisation in a period when communications and information technology have become critical factors, by their spectacular growth and rate in the economy dynamics, as engines of effective development of all the other sectors. Mobile telephony is a worldwide successful experience of the communications industry, and the situation on the Romanian market of mobile communications is a clear proof therefor. Thus, between 2002 and 2003, the rate of penetration of mobile telephone services rose from 23% to 32%, while the average rate of penetration in the EU new member countries reached only 43% by the end of June 2003.

According to international studies, there is a direct, dynamic relation between the growth of the penetration rate of mobile telephone services and the level of economic development indicators of a country.

In Romania, the fixed-line telephony segment has witnessed steady growth these years, reaching a 20.1% penetration rate by the end of 2003, despite the world stagnant trend. Having a similar evolution with most of the new member countries of the EU, the fixed-line telephony segment will reach an upper limit of growth, and then will stagnate, at the moment when Romania implements the mechanisms of universal service, ensuring the optimum coverage of the communities that currently have no access to telephony services.

The widespread access of all the citizens to the modern communications technologies will be acquired by the implementation of broadband communications solutions, which is a growing sector in Romania, as well. Thus, the number of subscriptions for Internet services doubled in one year, as by the end of 2003 there were over 906 thousand Internet subscriptions. “Since one such subscription can serve several users, the number of Internet services end users may reach 4 – 5 million, of which two thirds use broadband connections”, the ANRC President declared.

“Rapid technological growth removed the barriers of traditional communication, where each type of network had to undergo changes for a certain type of application and – therefore – for a certain type of communication. The most frequently used modern communications are voice communications through data networks, especially VoIP, and data communications through networks designed for voice transmission, such as ISDN, or the SMS service in GSM, as well as CATV telephony or data transmissions”, Ion Smeeianu pointed out.