ANCOM: Broadband internet – accessed from more and more mobile access points by Romanian users

The broadband internet access market continued, in the 1st half of 2012, its rising trend on all segments, with access to the internet from mobile points registering the highest increase, according to data reported by the 951 internet providers in Romania, data gathered and aggregated by ANCOM (Romanian National Authority for Communication Management and Regulations), in a report available here.

The number of connections to access broadband internet from fixed points reached to over 3.4M, with a quarterly growth of 4.1% and an annual growth of 9.1% at annual level. The most important annual growth were on connections using xDSL tech for final user’s access (an annual growth of 5.4%, until almost 1M connections),  UTP/FTP cable connections (+ 11,7%, to 1.9M connections ) and co-axial cable connections (+8.4% annual growth, to 440,000 connections).

From the total of broadband internet connections at fixed points in Romania, over 3M connections (88.9%) use FTTx tech, using optic fiber until final user location or to a certain point close to him, which makes possible high speed connections to internet.

The penetration rate for broadband internet access for 100 inhabitants reached to 18% in Romania after the 1st half of the year, while the penetration rate for 100 households reached 44%. From the 3.4M broadband internet access connections reported in the 1st half of the year, over 90% were installed  by physical persons.

In the 1st half of 2012, there was an accentuated increase in number of connections installed in rural areas, until 0.8M connections (+11,7% per semester and +26,4% annuallt),while, in urban areas, the number of connections increased 2% per semester and 4.8% at annual level, to 2.6M

When it comes of internet connections in fixed points, half of the connections at fixed points used by physical persons subscribers are very high speed connections (at least 30 Mbps).

According to the data provided by the 6 providers of internet access to mobile points, the total number of active broadband internet connections at mobile points reached 6.9M, up 63.8% compared to the end of 2011 and almost double compared to the value registered mid-2011. There were reported 5.6M active broadband connections at mobile points used by mobile phones and 1.3M active broadband connections used via modems, cards and USB devices.

When it coms of SIM cards & terminals that allow mobile internet access via 3G (3G+) techs, EV-DO, 4G or other superior tech, their number was of around 7.4M on June 30th 2012.

There’s a raising interest from Romanians for mobile internet, a thing also shown by the spectacular evolution in the latest period in number of connections used via mobile phone, with the payment of a monthly fee. Practically, during just one year, the total number of active internet broadband connections in mobile points almost doubled

Catalin Marinescu,

ANCOM President

The statistical data report was made based on reports from internet providers that had activities between January 1st – June 30th 2012.