Wednesday, December 19, 2007, Sighetu Silvaniei, Salaj county. The national programme for the implementation of the universal service initiated by the National Regulatory Authority for Communications and Information Technology reached the installation of the 300th telecentre. Dan Georgescu, the President of ANRCTI, together with Sorin Vasilescu, Project Manager within Orange Romania, were present at the launch of the telecentre marking the middle of the national programme for the installation of telecentres.
“So far, we have installed 300 telecentres, in cooperation with the service providers and local authorities and we shall continue until we will have installed at least one means of communication with the world in every locality in Romania. We wish that people located in any part of the country to be able to use the technology in order to communicate, achieve their desires and offer better life for their children. We are practically at the middle of this programme and, taking a look behind, we discover proofs of the interest people show towards knowledge and communication within the successful stories revealed by the telecentres installed. We hope that by means of this 300th telecentre, we will contribute to forming the 100 children living in this locality, who are now closer to the world”, declared Dan Georgescu, the President of ANRCTI. He also announced that 7 of the 13 telecentres afferent to Salaj county, following the tenders ANRCTI has organized so far, are already functional.
“Orange got involved within the project developed by ANRCTI from the beginning and we are proud to have opened up to now 45 telecentres, following to launch another 50, two of which will be installed in Salaj county. We consider that we have an important role in the increase of access to information and modern means of communications for the communities of the rural areas”, said Sorin Vasilescu, Project Manager, Orange Romania.
At the launch of the telecentre, the representatives of ANRCTI and Orange Romania surfed the Internet together with the children learning in the locality’s kindergarten and school and offered them Christmas gifts. In order to help pupils in Sighetu Silvaniei not to limit to the virtual library available on the Internet and to enable them to consult a traditional collection of books, the Authority’s employees donated books to the telecentre, thus putting the basis for a school’s library.
So far, 300 out of the 600 telecentres have been installed within the national programme for the installation of the universal service. The national programme for the installation of telecentres in villages with limited or without access to telephony services was initiated by ANRCTI in 2004. So far, ANRCTI has organised 6 tenders for the installation of telecentres in 461 localities. The last tender is to be launched during this week for the installation of telecentres in approx. 170 localities.