June 8, 2006, Fagetu, county of Salaj. Today, the President of the National Regulatory Authority for Communications, Mr. Dan Georgescu, and Mr. Ionel Branga, Commercial Executive Manager of RADIOCOM – the National Radiocommunications Company, have met the users of the telecentre in Fagetu, county of Salaj, in order to present them and test together the telephone and Internet services provided by the telecentre installed this spring.
Fagetu is one of the localities endowed with telecentres within the national programme for the installation of telecentres in the communities with limited access to telephone and Internet services. This programme has already provided for 33 telecentres and envisages the installation of 75 more telecentres until the end of August 2006. Fagetu is one of the 9 localities envisaged by the project where the communications solution was installed by RADIOCOM. This company committed itself to installing 50 more telecentres by the end of August 2006.
Two months ago, the villagers of Fagetu, 99% of which are Slovak, were deprived of telecommunications services, as there was no fixed telephone line in the village, while mobile telephones can hardly be used, due to the poor coverage of the mobile networks in the area. Since the installation of this telecentre, the more than 700 inhabitants of the village may initiate and receive local, national and international calls, may call numbers in the mobile telephone networks and the single emergency number – 112 and may access Internet websites or use the fax machine. Today, the villagers were invited to use the tecentre services, cost-free.
The mayor of Fagetu, Mr. Francisc Pisek, highlighted that the village, spreading its houses at long distances on approximately 40 km, used to be isolated, deprived of any kind of infrastructure until six or seven years ago. Over time, Fagetu was connected to the electricity network, had a road built and now, by the installation of this telecentre, another important problem of the community – access to communications – has been solved.
“The villagers are happy to be able to finally communicate easily with their families in Slovakia. The telecentre, as well as the charity house we manage, are permanently open. Internet access is free of cost all the time, therefore the village’s teachers have already planned to bring their pupils here for the Computer Science classes, so that they could teach them how to use the Internet the computers,” the telecentre administrator, sister Maria Charitas, from the Institute of Charitable Sisters of the Holy Cross in Slovakia, explained.
“The Fagetu telecentre may be considered a good practice example, since the local community has pulled together in order to obtain maximum benefits from the use of technology. The whole project for the installation of telecentres is based on a partnership between the local administration, the communications providers and ANRC. I believe that this fruitful collaboration is an encouraging premise for the success of our goal: connecting all the isolated communities in Romania to communications services”, Mr. Dan Georgescu, the ANRC President, declared on this occasion.
Mr. Ionel Baranga declared, on behalf of RADIOCOM: “Radiocom’s technical and commercial resources and competences, under the ANRC project, enabled the provision of electronic communications services to 59 localities. I would like to emphasise Radiocom’s willingness to support social development projects, including the one for the implementation of universal service; the above-mentioned resources are merely instruments allowing the project implementation. Telecommunications are the future of the 21th century and our children will be the ones to take forward our present efforts. That is why we extended the project in this locality, by installing a new telephone set, in the village school. Now, the villagers of Fagetu have access to three telephone sets”.