Tuesday, April 6, the President of the National Regulatory Authority for Communications, Ion Smeeianu, presented in the opening of the Telecom 2004 Conference data regarding the rate of access to communications services on the Romanian territory.
The measures adopted by ANRC are tailored to fit the specifics of the Romanian communications market. For a more precise evaluation of the situation, the ANRC territorial offices have collected and verified, in the field, data about access to communications services, during a study entitled „Communications’ Outlook”, conducted between July 26 and October 29, 2003.
The preliminary results of this research point out that the highest fixed telephony penetration rate at the time was in Sibiu county, with a value of 26.12%, closely followed by Timis county (24.94%), Brasov county (24.28%) and Constanta county (23.70%). The fixed telephony penetration rate at national level is of approximately 20%, with the lowest penetration rate registered in Ilfov, with a value of 9.02%. In Bucharest, at the moment of the study, there were 756,514 fixed telephony subscribers.
The largest number of locations with no access to fixed telephony services is in Valcea county, where 202 locations have no fixed telephony coverage. Hunedoara, Vaslui, Alba, Dolj, Suceava, Caras-Severin and Cluj counties also have over 100 locations where there are no public payphones or phone lines.
The counties with the lowest number of locations with no access to fixed telephony services are: Maramures (1), Covasna (3) and Brasov (4).
As regards the end users of mobile telephony services, the study indicated Buzau and Alba as the counties with the highest number of locations outside the mobile telephony coverage area. Also, these are the only counties where the uncovered locations exceed 100. In Bihor, Calarasi, Ialomita, Ilfov, and Olt counties there are no locations outside the mobile telephony coverage area.
The CATV services have a higher coverage rate, due to a well developed cable infrastructure at national level. However, there still is a large number of locations that do not have access to cable television services. Thus, the studies conducted by ANRC showed that the county with the largest number of places where CATV services are not accessible is Alba county (650), followed by Hunedoara (452), Vaslui (428) and Iasi counties (390).
The ANRC President explained that there are two solutions for solving this situation: first by developing the infrastructure and the services on a commercial basis, and secondly by using the mechanisms of the universal service. “The joint efforts of the communications industry, as the partner expected to bring the most substantial support, and the state authorities, which need to intervene in order to ensure a favourable climate for investments and the rapid development of competition, can lead to the extension of the electronic communications services and can ensure access for those consumers who are located in disadvantaged regions, who have difficult access to the communications infrastructure, or who have special needs”, declared Ion Smeeianu.
The presentation is available on the website of the regulatory authority.