Internet in Romania
Encyclopedia
In Romania
there are 7.8 million connections to the Internet, out of which 4 million are broadband
(end of 2010).
Country code
(Top level domain): .ro
The .eu domain is also used, as it is shared with other European Union member states.
There were approximatively 250 000 domains
registered under .ro at the end of 2007. This number had risen to over 340,000 in November 2008.
, Iaşi
and Timişoara
are in the top 100 towns at the world level with the highest average Internet speeds.
Based on Pando networks content delivery service released on September 2011, Romania has the second fastest Internet speeds on the world at 15.27 Mbps, slightly behind South Korea
at 17.62 Mbps. Romania surpassed Bulgaria, Lithuania and Latvia on the top five, while the United Stated was only the 26th.
Distribution of broadband connections by type, as reported by ANRCTI, is as follows:
In Romania, broadband internet has been available since 2000, through coaxial cable
, first from Kappa (now defunct) and currently from RCS&RDS
and UPC
-Astral
. Recent speeds range between 1 Mbit/s and 20 Mbit/s (both upstream and downstream) for household targeted plans.
However, the most popular broadband services are provided by micro-ISPs (known locally as "reţea de bloc/reţea de cartier" (Block/Neighborhood Networks) with 50 to 3000 customers each. These ISPs usually provide their services through 100BASE-T UTP LANs, with a number of particularities and peculiarities: most were grassroot organizations and still have a feeling of community between subscribers and the management, speeds are usually divided in three categories: "LAN", "Metropolitan" and "International" with Metropolitan meaning a limited number of networks with which the micro-ISP has a peering agreement and sometimes the cable internet providers. Generally, for such broadband connections, speeds are 100 Mbit/s locally, 1-50 Mbit/s metro and 256-2048 kbit/s International. Some of these micro-ISP function completely legally, while others (generally the smaller ones) are organized informally in something like a permanent LAN party
. Many of these micro-ISPs formed organizations to represent their common interests and provide for integration of services (one such organization is Interlan
, covering the whole of Bucharest
). Speeds, uptime, quality of service are generally not guaranteed, and while the biggest networks offer high quality connections and technical support, for the smallest ones, there is even the risk of network cards burning because of lightning strikes and badly insulated network infrastructure.
For business use, services are usually provided through fiber optics or radio. Companies providing such services are providing very flexible and negotiable plans also based on the Metropolitan/International distinction. Usually prices and bandwidths are fully negotiable, with the micro-ISPs discussed above being influential resellers. There is very strong competition, with no peering between many such companies (again requiring a lot of traffic to be routed through international routes) and not even access to another's fiber-optics infrastructure (leading to the existence, in some cases, of over 25 fiber optics cables on the same street, hanging from the same pole). As such many companies have two separate providers for basically the same services. The major players being:
DSL has been a recent addition, and is not such a popular choice compared to the other offers because it is slightly more expensive, but it has a great coverage (more than 650 cities and towns). DSL in Romania is provided by Romtelecom
and a small number of Romtelecom licensees (DigiCom, etc.) using its extensive infrastructure.
Triple Play
(cable, internet, phone service) subscriptions are offered. Note that one must also have a cable subscription with RCS&RDS to have an Internet subscription, but each subscription can be sold separately in the areas covered by the fiber optics network.
UPC-low cost provider
Triple Play (cable, internet, phone service) subscriptions are offered. Note that one must also have a cable subscription with UPC to have an Internet subscription.
Important UPC note: There is a 10GB/day recommended traffic quota. If exceeded, the downstream and upstream is limited to 10% of the initial specified speed.
launched in 2006 FiberLink, an optic fiber based internet subscription geared towards supporting and encouraging the large demand for cheap metropolitan traffic. Most of RCS&RDS' cable
infrastructure immediately began being replaced by the newer FTTB, and as of late 2006 RCS&RDS started expanding the service by acquiring and converting the popular "Neighborhood Networks" of the urban areas.
Both with free unlimited (bandwidth throttled) 7.2mbps mobile internet.http://www.rcs-rds.ro/internet-digi-net/fiberlink/pachete
Using the same FTTB infrastructure RDS&RCS is also offering business connections which have symmetrical bandwidths (same speed for downstream and upstream):
(and faster speeds also)
The infrastructure supports 100 Mbit/s metropolitan (local) traffic.
GTS Central Europe
GTS Telecom is the quality leader on the telecom Romanian market . ISO 9001 certified, and positioned as BusinessAccelerator, the company deploys solutions managed up to the customers' connection interface, with contractually guaranteed technical parameters, availability and stability.
The range of deployed services include carrier solutions, data communications based on DWDM, MPLS, TCP /IP and Frame Relay, Internet connections, telephony and server hosting and collocation in own DataCenter.
For all services installed to the customer, GTS Telecom guarantees the technical and quality parameters based on contractual Service Level Agreement (SLA). In 2008 the average SLA level for all installed services was 99.83%, after the 99.74% in 2007 and 99.85% in 2006. According to independent market monitoring, in the last 5 years the satisfaction level of the GTS Telecom customers reached 6.4 on a 7 points scale.
GTS Telecom is one of the founding members of Romanian Network for Internet eXchange, RoNIX, and hosts part of the exchange /interconnection infrastructure in DataCenter. Besides the 1 Gbit/s port in RoNIX, GTS followed its own interconnection policy, developing private peering inter-connections with the main service providers in Romania.
UPC Romania
.
offers a wireless broadband service based on CDMA 1x
and 1xEV-DO technology, with speeds of up to 2,4 Mbit/s downstream / 153 kbit/s upstream. Recently, the network added EV-DO Rev. A capabilities, with 3,1 Mbit/s downstream / 1,8 Mbit/s upstream. Subscriptions offer unlimited data transfers, with speed limitations after a certain amount is transferred. An UMTS 3G+ network is being deployed, with speeds up to 7.2 Mbit/s.
Orange Romania
offers a 3G/3G+ service up to 7.2 Mbit/s in selected areas. An unlimited time, 8 GB/month traffic limit. Lower priced plans, with less included traffic are also available. Additionally, where 3G/3G+ is unavailable, there is nationwide coverage of the GPRS / EDGE
/ UMTS network (where available) providing speeds of between 220-384 kbit/s downstream.
Vodafone Romania
also uses 3G/3G+ technologies, with speeds of up to 7.2 Mbit/s. The HSDPA coverage is mainly targeted towards Bucharest and several other major cities and destinations http://www.vodafone.ro/en/coverage/3g-broadband.html.
Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...
there are 7.8 million connections to the Internet, out of which 4 million are broadband
Broadband Internet access
Broadband Internet access, often shortened to just "broadband", is a high data rate, low-latency connection to the Internet— typically contrasted with dial-up access using a 56 kbit/s modem or satellite Internet with inherently high latency....
(end of 2010).
Country code
Country code
Country codes are short alphabetic or numeric geographical codes developed to represent countries and dependent areas, for use in data processing and communications. Several different systems have been developed to do this. The best known of these is ISO 3166-1...
(Top level domain): .ro
.ro
.ro is the Internet country code top-level domain for Romania. It is administered by the National Institute for R&D in Informatics. As of December 2007, about 250,000 domains were registered under the .ro domain. In June 2008 there were around 6.8 million Google results for the .ro domain...
The .eu domain is also used, as it is shared with other European Union member states.
There were approximatively 250 000 domains
Domain name
A domain name is an identification string that defines a realm of administrative autonomy, authority, or control in the Internet. Domain names are formed by the rules and procedures of the Domain Name System ....
registered under .ro at the end of 2007. This number had risen to over 340,000 in November 2008.
Average Speed
Based on Akami report at January 2011, ConstanţaConstanta
Constanța is the oldest extant city in Romania, founded around 600 BC. The city is located in the Dobruja region of Romania, on the Black Sea coast. It is the capital of Constanța County and the largest city in the region....
, Iaşi
Iasi
Iași is the second most populous city and a municipality in Romania. Located in the historical Moldavia region, Iași has traditionally been one of the leading centres of Romanian social, cultural, academic and artistic life...
and Timişoara
Timisoara
Timișoara is the capital city of Timiș County, in western Romania. One of the largest Romanian cities, with an estimated population of 311,586 inhabitants , and considered the informal capital city of the historical region of Banat, Timișoara is the main social, economic and cultural center in the...
are in the top 100 towns at the world level with the highest average Internet speeds.
Based on Pando networks content delivery service released on September 2011, Romania has the second fastest Internet speeds on the world at 15.27 Mbps, slightly behind South Korea
South Korea
The Republic of Korea , , is a sovereign state in East Asia, located on the southern portion of the Korean Peninsula. It is neighbored by the People's Republic of China to the west, Japan to the east, North Korea to the north, and the East China Sea and Republic of China to the south...
at 17.62 Mbps. Romania surpassed Bulgaria, Lithuania and Latvia on the top five, while the United Stated was only the 26th.
Internet Service Providers
Total number of active providers, as of Dec 31 2007: 1338- Dial-up Access (fixed and cellular): 64 providers,
- Coaxial CableCoaxial cableCoaxial cable, or coax, has an inner conductor surrounded by a flexible, tubular insulating layer, surrounded by a tubular conducting shield. The term coaxial comes from the inner conductor and the outer shield sharing the same geometric axis...
(cable modemCable modemA cable modem is a type of network bridge and modem that provides bi-directional data communication via radio frequency channels on a HFC and RFoG infrastructure. Cable modems are primarily used to deliver broadband Internet access in the form of cable Internet, taking advantage of the high...
) Access: 72 providers, - Optical FiberOptical fiberAn optical fiber is a flexible, transparent fiber made of a pure glass not much wider than a human hair. It functions as a waveguide, or "light pipe", to transmit light between the two ends of the fiber. The field of applied science and engineering concerned with the design and application of...
Access: 343 providers, - Wireless Access: 355 providers,
- xDSL Access: 52 providers,
- Twisted pairTwisted pairTwisted pair cabling is a type of wiring in which two conductors are twisted together for the purposes of canceling out electromagnetic interference from external sources; for instance, electromagnetic radiation from unshielded twisted pair cables, and crosstalk between neighboring pairs...
EthernetEthernetEthernet is a family of computer networking technologies for local area networks commercially introduced in 1980. Standardized in IEEE 802.3, Ethernet has largely replaced competing wired LAN technologies....
, satellite, other: 1125 providers
Broadband Internet access
Broadband penetration as of Dec 31 2007: 14.8 broadband connections for every 100 people.Distribution of broadband connections by type, as reported by ANRCTI, is as follows:
- ISDN: 0.003%
- Cellular broadband (EDGEEnhanced Data Rates for GSM EvolutionEnhanced Data rates for GSM Evolution is a digital mobile phone technology that allows improved data transmission rates as a backward-compatible extension of GSM...
, CDMA/EVDO, 3G3G3G or 3rd generation mobile telecommunications is a generation of standards for mobile phones and mobile telecommunication services fulfilling the International Mobile Telecommunications-2000 specifications by the International Telecommunication Union...
): 33.1% - Cable modemCable modemA cable modem is a type of network bridge and modem that provides bi-directional data communication via radio frequency channels on a HFC and RFoG infrastructure. Cable modems are primarily used to deliver broadband Internet access in the form of cable Internet, taking advantage of the high...
s: 14.9% - Optical fiber: 2.9%
- Wireless: 1% (0.7% Wi-FiWi-FiWi-Fi or Wifi, is a mechanism for wirelessly connecting electronic devices. A device enabled with Wi-Fi, such as a personal computer, video game console, smartphone, or digital audio player, can connect to the Internet via a wireless network access point. An access point has a range of about 20...
) - xDSL: 11.4%
- Twisted pairTwisted pairTwisted pair cabling is a type of wiring in which two conductors are twisted together for the purposes of canceling out electromagnetic interference from external sources; for instance, electromagnetic radiation from unshielded twisted pair cables, and crosstalk between neighboring pairs...
EthernetEthernetEthernet is a family of computer networking technologies for local area networks commercially introduced in 1980. Standardized in IEEE 802.3, Ethernet has largely replaced competing wired LAN technologies....
, satellite, other: 36.7%
In Romania, broadband internet has been available since 2000, through coaxial cable
Coaxial cable
Coaxial cable, or coax, has an inner conductor surrounded by a flexible, tubular insulating layer, surrounded by a tubular conducting shield. The term coaxial comes from the inner conductor and the outer shield sharing the same geometric axis...
, first from Kappa (now defunct) and currently from RCS&RDS
RCS&RDS
RCS&RDS is the largest Romanian cable and internet provider, offering nationwide satellite television, cable television, cable internet, VOIP, and 3G services...
and UPC
Liberty Global Europe
Liberty Global, Inc. is an international media company and one of the largest broadband providers outside the United States of America. It was formed by the merger of the international arm of Liberty Media and UGC .-Europe:...
-Astral
Astral Telecom
UPC Romania is the 2nd largest cable television operator in Romania after RCS&RDS. UPC Romania provides video, broadband internet, and digital telephony services to 1.2 million customers as of December 31, 2009....
. Recent speeds range between 1 Mbit/s and 20 Mbit/s (both upstream and downstream) for household targeted plans.
However, the most popular broadband services are provided by micro-ISPs (known locally as "reţea de bloc/reţea de cartier" (Block/Neighborhood Networks) with 50 to 3000 customers each. These ISPs usually provide their services through 100BASE-T UTP LANs, with a number of particularities and peculiarities: most were grassroot organizations and still have a feeling of community between subscribers and the management, speeds are usually divided in three categories: "LAN", "Metropolitan" and "International" with Metropolitan meaning a limited number of networks with which the micro-ISP has a peering agreement and sometimes the cable internet providers. Generally, for such broadband connections, speeds are 100 Mbit/s locally, 1-50 Mbit/s metro and 256-2048 kbit/s International. Some of these micro-ISP function completely legally, while others (generally the smaller ones) are organized informally in something like a permanent LAN party
LAN party
A LAN party is a temporary, sometimes spontaneous, gathering of people with computers, between which they establish a local area network , primarily for the purpose of playing multiplayer computer games. The size of these networks may vary from the very small to very large installations...
. Many of these micro-ISPs formed organizations to represent their common interests and provide for integration of services (one such organization is Interlan
Interlan
InterLAN is an Internet Exchange founded in 2005 in Bucharest, Romania. Since 2008, Interlan became a member of the Euro-IX Organisation.-POP's:Interlan has five POP's in Bucharest and one in Cluj-Napoca:...
, covering the whole of Bucharest
Bucharest
Bucharest is the capital municipality, cultural, industrial, and financial centre of Romania. It is the largest city in Romania, located in the southeast of the country, at , and lies on the banks of the Dâmbovița River....
). Speeds, uptime, quality of service are generally not guaranteed, and while the biggest networks offer high quality connections and technical support, for the smallest ones, there is even the risk of network cards burning because of lightning strikes and badly insulated network infrastructure.
For business use, services are usually provided through fiber optics or radio. Companies providing such services are providing very flexible and negotiable plans also based on the Metropolitan/International distinction. Usually prices and bandwidths are fully negotiable, with the micro-ISPs discussed above being influential resellers. There is very strong competition, with no peering between many such companies (again requiring a lot of traffic to be routed through international routes) and not even access to another's fiber-optics infrastructure (leading to the existence, in some cases, of over 25 fiber optics cables on the same street, hanging from the same pole). As such many companies have two separate providers for basically the same services. The major players being:
- RCS&RDS
- Euroweb
- Mediasat
- UPC formerly known as Astral
- iLink
- Intrabit
- Ines & * Fibernet
- GTS Central Europe GTS Telecom (formerly known as KPNQuest Romania)
DSL has been a recent addition, and is not such a popular choice compared to the other offers because it is slightly more expensive, but it has a great coverage (more than 650 cities and towns). DSL in Romania is provided by Romtelecom
Romtelecom
Romtelecom is the largest telecommunications company in Romania; the majority of shares are held by the Greek telecommunications company OTE . The Romanian state also has a minority stake of 45.99% in the company. The company had a monopoly for the provision of fixed telephony services until...
and a small number of Romtelecom licensees (DigiCom, etc.) using its extensive infrastructure.
Cable
RCS&RDS- low-cost provider- 5 Mbit/s downstream / 512 kbit/s upstream
- 10 Mbit/s downstream / 1024 kbit/s upstream
Triple Play
Triple play (telecommunications)
In telecommunications, triple play service is a marketing term for the provisioning of two bandwidth-intensive services, high-speed Internet access and television, and a less bandwidth-demanding service, telephone, over a single broadband connection. Triple play focuses on a combined business...
(cable, internet, phone service) subscriptions are offered. Note that one must also have a cable subscription with RCS&RDS to have an Internet subscription, but each subscription can be sold separately in the areas covered by the fiber optics network.
UPC-low cost provider
- Start 256 kbit/s downstream / 64 kbit/s upstream FREE (€12 installation) with phone/tv service (minimum €10 per month package).http://www.upc.ro/internet/
Triple Play (cable, internet, phone service) subscriptions are offered. Note that one must also have a cable subscription with UPC to have an Internet subscription.
Important UPC note: There is a 10GB/day recommended traffic quota. If exceeded, the downstream and upstream is limited to 10% of the initial specified speed.
FTTB
RCS&RDSRCS&RDS
RCS&RDS is the largest Romanian cable and internet provider, offering nationwide satellite television, cable television, cable internet, VOIP, and 3G services...
launched in 2006 FiberLink, an optic fiber based internet subscription geared towards supporting and encouraging the large demand for cheap metropolitan traffic. Most of RCS&RDS' cable
Hybrid fibre-coaxial
Hybrid fiber-coaxial is a telecommunications industry term for a broadband network which combines optical fibre and coaxial cable. It was commonly employed globally by cable television operators since the early 1990s.-Description:...
infrastructure immediately began being replaced by the newer FTTB, and as of late 2006 RCS&RDS started expanding the service by acquiring and converting the popular "Neighborhood Networks" of the urban areas.
- 50 Mbit/s downstream traffic for 7€/month
- 100 Mbit/s downstream traffic for 10€/month
Both with free unlimited (bandwidth throttled) 7.2mbps mobile internet.http://www.rcs-rds.ro/internet-digi-net/fiberlink/pachete
Using the same FTTB infrastructure RDS&RCS is also offering business connections which have symmetrical bandwidths (same speed for downstream and upstream):
- up to 10 Mbit/s for 20Euro/month
- up to 20 Mbit/s for 30Euro/month
- up to 10 Mbit/s for 50Euro/month, with 1 Mbit contractually guaranteed speed
- up to 10 Mbit/s for 100Euro/month, with 2 Mbit contractually guaranteed speed
(and faster speeds also)
The infrastructure supports 100 Mbit/s metropolitan (local) traffic.
GTS Central Europe
GTS Telecom is the quality leader on the telecom Romanian market . ISO 9001 certified, and positioned as BusinessAccelerator, the company deploys solutions managed up to the customers' connection interface, with contractually guaranteed technical parameters, availability and stability.
The range of deployed services include carrier solutions, data communications based on DWDM, MPLS, TCP /IP and Frame Relay, Internet connections, telephony and server hosting and collocation in own DataCenter.
For all services installed to the customer, GTS Telecom guarantees the technical and quality parameters based on contractual Service Level Agreement (SLA). In 2008 the average SLA level for all installed services was 99.83%, after the 99.74% in 2007 and 99.85% in 2006. According to independent market monitoring, in the last 5 years the satisfaction level of the GTS Telecom customers reached 6.4 on a 7 points scale.
GTS Telecom is one of the founding members of Romanian Network for Internet eXchange, RoNIX, and hosts part of the exchange /interconnection infrastructure in DataCenter. Besides the 1 Gbit/s port in RoNIX, GTS followed its own interconnection policy, developing private peering inter-connections with the main service providers in Romania.
UPC Romania
- 10 Mbit/s download, 2 Mbit/s upload for €4/month
- 20 Mbit/s download, 3 Mbit/s upload for €7/month
- 60 Mbit/s download, 4 Mbit/s upload for €12/month
- 120 Mbit/s download, 6 Mbit/s upload for €17/month http://fiber.upc.ro/
VDSL
Service is offered by Clicknet, a subsidiary of RomtelecomRomtelecom
Romtelecom is the largest telecommunications company in Romania; the majority of shares are held by the Greek telecommunications company OTE . The Romanian state also has a minority stake of 45.99% in the company. The company had a monopoly for the provision of fixed telephony services until...
.
- ClickNet Surf 2 Mbit/s (2048 kbit/s downstream, 512 kbit/s upstream) €4.34 per month
- ClickNet Play 20 Mbit/s (20480 kbit/s downstream, 4096 kbit/s upstream) €6.82 per month
- ClickNet Power 30 Mbit/s (307020 kbit/s downstream, 6144 kbit/s upstream) €9.30 per month
FTTH
Service is offered by Clicknet, a subsidiary of Romtelecom.- ClickNet Play 50 Mbit/s (51200 kbit/s downstream, 4096 kbit/s upstream) €6.82 per month
- ClickNet Power 100 Mbit/s (102400 kbit/s downstream, 6144 kbit/s upstream) €9.30 per month https://www.romtelecom.ro/magazin-online/servicii-pentru-acasa/internet.html
Mobile&Wireless
ZappZapp Mobile
Zapp Mobile is the first CDMA 450 MHz mobile phone operator in Romania, now part of Cosmote. Zapp has around 200,000 subscribers left, giving the CDMA network around 1% market share, and the number is declining because of migration of the customers to other GSM or UMTS networks...
offers a wireless broadband service based on CDMA 1x
CDMA2000
CDMA2000 is a family of 3G mobile technology standards, which use CDMA channel access, to send voice, data, and signaling data between mobile phones and cell sites. The set of standards includes: CDMA2000 1X, CDMA2000 EV-DO Rev. 0, CDMA2000 EV-DO Rev. A, and CDMA2000 EV-DO Rev. B...
and 1xEV-DO technology, with speeds of up to 2,4 Mbit/s downstream / 153 kbit/s upstream. Recently, the network added EV-DO Rev. A capabilities, with 3,1 Mbit/s downstream / 1,8 Mbit/s upstream. Subscriptions offer unlimited data transfers, with speed limitations after a certain amount is transferred. An UMTS 3G+ network is being deployed, with speeds up to 7.2 Mbit/s.
Orange Romania
Orange România
Orange România is Romania's largest GSM network operator, the subsidiary of Orange SA. It is now fully owned by the France Télécom Group , the biggest initial investor, who gradually increased its ownership....
offers a 3G/3G+ service up to 7.2 Mbit/s in selected areas. An unlimited time, 8 GB/month traffic limit. Lower priced plans, with less included traffic are also available. Additionally, where 3G/3G+ is unavailable, there is nationwide coverage of the GPRS / EDGE
Enhanced Data Rates for GSM Evolution
Enhanced Data rates for GSM Evolution is a digital mobile phone technology that allows improved data transmission rates as a backward-compatible extension of GSM...
/ UMTS network (where available) providing speeds of between 220-384 kbit/s downstream.
Vodafone Romania
Vodafone Romania
Vodafone is a Romanian mobile phone network operator. It launched in April 1997 as the first GSM network in Romania...
also uses 3G/3G+ technologies, with speeds of up to 7.2 Mbit/s. The HSDPA coverage is mainly targeted towards Bucharest and several other major cities and destinations http://www.vodafone.ro/en/coverage/3g-broadband.html.