Covering the „white zones” should be a priority for the telecommunications market in Romania, because there are still many people who do not have access to high-speed Internet, deputy chairman of the National Authority for Communications Administration and Regulation (ANCOM) Pavel Popescu told a specialist conference on Monday.

„I think that some important steps have been taken in recent years. Today, the market does not look bad at all in Romania. Of course, if you look at what connectivity means in Romania in the European ranking, I could say that we are at a much better point than we were 12-13 years ago. We are much better off than many other European countries. If you look at fixed fibre connections, today, at over 93% of postal addresses in Romania, compared to Norway, Romania is very, very good. Of course, we can do much more in the area of detail, for example to bring fibre to people’s homes. You all know the great national infrastructure projects that have taken fibre to a certain address or to the centre of a village, a small town and have not managed to extend it. I think we are at the point where we should put all these pieces of the puzzle – of course also mobile connectivity through 5G, and fixed fibre – so that we can also look to the future, which means other types of networks, to be able to cover the ‘white areas’ of this country. I think it should be a priority for the telecommunications market. There are still very, very many people who do not have access to high-speed internet in Romania,” Popescu said.

According to the ANCOM official, although there is this fear of a fulminant evolution regarding what new technologies mean, „we must realise that the traditional way of communication will maintain its extraordinarily important role.”

„Looking at the new technologies, I can boast of the fact that ANCOM, today, is one of the institutions that not only looks over the fence at what is happening, but we are hands-on. We even have partnerships with companies of international prestige, of course religiously respecting impartiality in the area of new types of networks (…) It is impossible to make a major leap from what traditional communications mean to satellite communications. I could say that none of them are mutually exclusive, but complement each other.”

The positive effects of the adoption of tools based on Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) on the local market, as well as the main negative sides of the boom in these technologies were addressed on Monday during a new edition of the „ZF Digital Summit” conference.

AGERPRES