The authorities want to create a governmental agency in partnership with the private sector for the state institutions to work in cloud computing together with the business environment, Communications and Information Society Minister Augustin Jianu (photo) told a specialist conference.
“What we are trying to do is to have a governmental agency together with the private sector, to create a governmental cloud that will provide software as services for the Government, the private sector. The Government will no longer have servers, infrastructure problems, because infrastructure will be outsourced. It will be a great challenge, but we believe we’ll succeed and the manner in which the Government works will change,” said Jianu.
In respect to the RO-NET project, he pointed out that it is not moving as fast as he would wish.
“Many of you have heard about the RO-NET project, which is not moving as fast as I would wish. Therefore, we’ll try and push this project to move faster, but we’ll also have some initiatives for Wi-Fi in the rural areas, to have at least some access points for people to be able to access the Internet in schools or any kind of public spaces. In regards to companies, it is in my responsibility to have e-governance services, same as for the citizens, to interact faster and easier with the Government. What we are trying to do is a time management. The entire economic activity is moving fast, but the Government is moving slower than the private sector or the citizens. We must move at the same speed. We must not remain the weakest link of the chain,” the Communications Minister also said.
ANCOM’s Marinescu: Internet penetration rate is 89 percent; connectivity stands at 60 percent
The Internet service penetration rate in Romania stands at 89 percent and connectivity around 60 percent, the National Authority for Administration and Regulation in Communications – ANCOM President Catalin Marinescu told a specialist conference on Tuesday.
“From a service quality point of view, Romania is on the first place and this is owed to some historic working conditions of the communications networks of Romania. With the old networks, the copper ones, very little developed… the operators’ alternative was to develop their own high-quality networks. They started directly with optical fiber and now, in Romania, the main Internet service supplier is an alternative operator, the former state-owned monopoly operator. This explains why we have very good quality. On the other hand, the fixed Internet penetration is probably not sufficient. There is a 89 percent penetration and a connectivity somewhere around 60 percent,” Marinescu said.
He also showed that the broadband service in Romania is available in much more places than the percentage of the persons who connect to these networks.
“The broadband access market is deregulated, free, and this thing has been noted. It was noted in the fact that operators have associated to develop own networks, be them 4G networks or optical fiber. They associated and this is very important because we cannot afford in Romania to develop expensive broadband networks, but cheap ones,” the ANCOM head also showed.
World Bank’s Capannelli: Human capital and potential that Romania can offer in IT are very rich
Romanian specialists of the IT sector are one of the best ones, but 40 percent of the population never used the Internet, County Manager for Romania and Hungary at the World Bank Elisabetta Capannelli told a specialized press conference.
“Romania has to focus on digital competence in order to decrease the gap. The Romanian language is the second spoken language in Microsoft offices around the world, and the Romanian IT specialists are among the best of large companies. One of the most popular applications that we use on our phones are developed by Romanians. The human capital and the potential that the country can offer are very rich. But, there is also a paradox that we see here, namely Romania has one of the lowest percentage of common Internet users of the EU, standing at 56 percent, and 40 percent of Romanian population never used the Internet,” Capannelli stated.
She brought to mind that Romania is in the ranking of countries with the fastest Internet speed, being over the EU average.
“The difference regarding the number of Internet connections between the rural and urban environment stays very high. What we see today in that Romania stands on the 26th place of the 28 of the EU in terms of broadband Internet coverage. The broadband insertion aims at only 63 percent of the population, which includes an important part of the rural environment. The Government has to increase this insertion from 63 percent to 70 percent until 2020. It’s a difficult target to achieve. The year 2020 is around the corner and a lot needs to be done here,” the World Bank official revealed.
Moreover, she mentioned that “it’s not possible for the private sector to increase the speed at which we had hoped for in terms of jobs, opportunities for Romanians without the upgrading of the public administration.”